Diversity of Fictional Lawyers

Over the past couple of months I have read 7 legal mysteries or thrillers in succession. I described this spring as my legal mystery reading season. While I carried out my commitment Mother Nature has not been compliant. We had snow a few days ago and no green grass has yet appeared. For this post I want to outline the diverse lawyers who have been the lead characters in those 7 books.

In Defending Jacob by William Landay there are a trio of lawyers. Andy Barber, 1st Assistant District Attorney, a skilled, even fierce prosecutor, is forced into a new role as the father of the accused.

Defence counsel, Jonathan Klein, is a low key well prepared advocate for Jacob.

2nd Assistant District Attorney, Neal Logiudice, has ambitions that lead him to make the case personal.

In Kill All the Lawyers by William Deverell there are a group of wild Vancouver lawyers.

Briam Pomeroy is a flamboyant defence counsel and aspiring mystery writer.

John Brovak, an even more flamboyant defence counsel, snaps in a long drug trial and reveals his "goddamn end" to a judge asking to see the end of him.

Augustina Sage is involved in civil actions, often for the downtrodden, as in a case for abused boarding school students.

Wentworth Chance is an earnest articling student trying to fathom how law is practised.

David Sloane, in The Jury Master by Robert Dugoni, is a former marine with an obscure past who is mesmerizing in closing addresses in civil jury trials. In the book he is an action hero who happens to be a lawyer.

Michael Seeley, in A Patent Lie by Paul Goldstein, is a high stakes patent litigator who had retreated to Buffalo from New York City to deal with his personal demon of alcoholism. He is a skilled lawyer in intellectual rights law.

In Trial & Error by Paul Levine I read again of Steve Solomon and Victoria Lord. The Florida lawyers are living together when they end up opposing each other in a murder trial. Steve is eccentric and wildly unprepared relying on his quick mental reflexes to save him in court. Victoria is careful and methodical and excessively prepared.

Paul Giannis, in Identical by Scott Turow, is mayor and a successful practising lawyer. The book is more about him as the plaintiff in a defamation action then concerning his legal practice.

Godfrey Higgs, in Who Killed Sir Harry by Eric Minns, was a real life lawyer, barely fictionalized (not even the name was changed), who represented Sir Alfred de Marigny in the Bahamas against the charge of murdering Sir Harry Oakes. Godfrey is presented a real life dream for a defence lawyer. He is able to prove a Crown fingerprint expert has provided false evidence. It is rare to be able to show an expert is wrong let alone establishing the expert was either incompetent or more likely dishonest.

My next post will provide some analysis of this group of lawyers.

Defending Jacob by William Landay

Defending Jacob by William Landay – Andy, Laurie and Jacob Barber live in Newton, Massachusetts just outside Boston. Andy is the top Assistant District Attorney in the city. Laurie is a former school teacher. Jacob is their 14 year old son. They are a conventional American middle class family. After Ben Rifkin, a classmate of Jacob, is stabbed to death they will long for a return to an average routine life. 

Andy takes on the Rifkin murder as usual in his 1^st ADA position. It is not a wise decision. With his son attending school with the victim and Andy personally knowing the Rifkin family he should have stepped back. 

Initially there is no suspect. Though the murder happened in a public park just before 8:30 in the morning there are no eye witnesses and the forensic evidence is limited.

Andy wants to focus on Leonard Patz, a local pedophile, though Patz has never been violent in encounters with boys. Andy wonders:

I studied the mug shot. I had a feeling about Patz right from the start. Of course, I was desperate – I wanted to feel that feeling, I badly needed a suspect, I needed to produce something finally – so I distrusted my suspicion. But I could not ignore it all together. You have to follow your intuition.”

His concentration on Patz appears intended to draw attention away from Jacob when evidence is found directly implicating Jacob.

Jacob’s fingerprint is found in blood on Rifkin’s clothing and a friend of Jacob, Derek Yoo, posts on social media that Jacob has a knife.

Jacob is swiftly indicted and the Barber family is thrust into the agony of defending Jacob in a highly public American murder case.

Overnight Andy moves from highly respected ADA to the tainted father of a murder suspect. He does not handle the transformation well. He has spent his life prosecuting “scumbags”. Now his son is the accused.

Every legal tactic and stratagem will be used in the defence of Jacob:

Most of the judges in Cambridge had the same reputation: soft, unrealistic, liberal. Now it seemed perfectly appropriate to load the dice that way. A liberal, it turns out, is a conservative who’s been indicted.

I love the last sentence. It reflects many conservatives I have known.

The family hires Jonathan Klein, a solid well prepared realistic defence counsel, who will guide them through the case.

Neal Logiudice, 2^nd ADA, whose ambitions range far beyond replacing Andy as 1^st ADA, is assigned the prosecution. Logiudice is competent but far too personal in his prosecution.

Andy, knowing his family’s life will be laid bare, shocks Laurie and Jacob with revelations concerning Andy’s father.

As the case proceeds there is an ambiguity concerning Jacob that reminded me of the uncertainty with regard to Rusty Sabich in Presumed Innocent and Innocent by Scott Turow. Landay does not provide the reader with the easy certainty of guilt or innocence. Readers are left to weigh the evidence.

It is a thoughtful book that was an uncomfortable for book for me both as a lawyer who is a parent and as a defence lawyer.

Having raised two sons, reading of parents coping with a son charged with a major crime, reminded me of every father’s secret fears that his teenage boys will get in trouble. I am grateful my sons have done well in life. For a lawyer parent there is a special discomfort as every trial lawyer sees young people who have committed crimes their parents cannot fathom.

As a defence counsel there is a heavier burden to defending teenagers. Families are closely involved in the cases. A life future is at stake.

I was glad I read the book. I cannot say I enjoyed a book that made me so uncomfortable. I regretted the ending. It veered away from the challenging conclusions of Turow’s books. I will read Landay again. (Apr. 27/14)

Reviewing the 2014 Arthur Ellis Shortlists against My Lists

In my last post I put up the shortlists for the 2014 Arthur Ellis Awards for Canadian crime fiction. The Awards are sponsored by the Crime Writers of Canada. At the start of the post I noted that I had not read any of the short listed books for the second year in a row.

As I looked at the lists I thought about the Canadian crime fiction I had read in 2013. There were several excellent books. I went back into my reading for the year and looked up the books nominated for Awards to see which books I had read that did not make the shortlists. The books I had read involved nominations in the categories of Best Novel and Best Juvenile/Young Adult.

Going alphabetically by author I read the following books in the Best Novel category:

1.) When the Saints Go Marching In by Anthony Bidulka;
2.) The Gifted by Gail Bowen;
3.) A Cold White Sun by Vicki Delany;
4.) Frisky Business by Jill Edmondson;
5.) The Third Riel Conspiracy by Stephen Legault;
6.) How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny;
7.) The Placebo Effect by David Rotenberg; and,
8.) Stranglehold by Robert Rotenberg.

With regard to my reading The Gifted was my favourite work of fiction for 2013 and Stranglehold was third best. I acknowledge bias for Gail Bowen who I know and whose work I admire. I equally admit a kinship with Robert Rotenberg, a fellow practising Canadian lawyer. At the same time I try hard to be objective in my reviews and I find it hard to believe neither of these fine books made the short list.

Ordinarily an even greater surprise would be that Louise Penny’s book, How the Light Gets In, short listed for the Edgars Best Novel category did not make the short list in Canada. It is not a shock to me as I thought How the Light Gets In was a good but not great book.

Authors on the long list, whom I have read, but not the books nominated this year are:

1.) A Tap on the Window by Linwood Barclay;
2.) The Scottish Banker by Ian Hamilton;
3.) Into the Dark by Rick Mofina; and,
4.) Children of the Revolution by Peter Robinson.

Of those nominated for Best Novel I have read two previous books by Howard Shrier but not this year’s book, Miss Montreal. The last book of Shrier’s I had read was High Chicago. While I liked the book I found the violence quotient excessive.

It is a year in which the Best Novel category is dominated by less prominent authors.

In the Juvenile/Young Adult category I had read Showdown at Border Town by Caroline Woodward.

I do regret Caroline did not make the shortlist. I thought her book very well written. When I look at the shortlist the names I recognize are adults. Caroline is a teenager and I wish she had gained the recognition of at least the shortlist.

I have decided I am going to have to read books from the shortlist to see if my dismay over omissions is justified or whether I am just being cranky.

2014 Arthur Ellis Awards Shortlists

Tonight, as has become tradition, in a series of events across Canada the shortlists for the Arthur Ellis Awards sponsored by the Crime Writers of Canada were announced. For the second year in a row I have not read any of the books listed in any of the categories. The shortlists are:

Best Novel

 

 John Brooke, Walls of a Mind, Signature Editions

Seán Haldane, The Devil’s Making, Stone Flower Press

Lee Lamothe, Presto Variations, Dundurn

Howard Shrier, Miss Montreal, Vintage Canada

Simone St. James, An Inquiry into Love and Death, Penguin Books

 

Best First Novel

 

E.R. Brown, Almost Criminal, Dundurn

A.S.A. Harrison, The Silent Wife, Penguin Books Canada

Axel Howerton, Hot Sinatra, Evolved Publishing

J. Kent Messum, Bait, Penguin Canada

S.G. Wong, Die on Your Feet, Carina Press

 

Best Novella

 

Melodie Campbell, The Goddaughter’s Revenge, Orca Books

Brenda Chapman, My Sister’s Keeper, Grassroots Press

James Heneghan, A Woman Scorned, Orca Books

 

Best Short Story

 

Donna Carrick, Watermelon Weekend, Thirteen,
Carrick Publishing

Jas. R. Petrin, Under Cap Ste. Claire, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, October 2013,
Dell Magazines

Twist Phelan, Footprints in Water, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, July 2013,
Dell Magazines

Sylvia Maultash Warsh, The Emerald Skull, Thirteen,
Carrick Publishing  

Sam Wiebe, The Third Echo, Girl Trouble: Malfeasance Occasional,
MacMillan/St Martin’s Press

 

Best Book in French

 

Chrystine Brouillet, Saccages, La courte échelle

Jacques Côté, Et à l'heure de votre mort, éditions Alire

Maureen Martineau, L’enfant promis, La courte échelle

Jacques Savoie, Le fils emprunté, Éditions Libre Expression

 

Best Juvenile/YA

 

 Karen Autio, Sabotage, Sono Nis Press

Gail Gallant, Apparition, Doubleday Canada

Elizabeth MacLeod, Bones Never Lie: How Forensics Helps Solve History’s Mysteries,
Annick Press

Ted Staunton, Who I’m Not, Orca Books

 

Unhanged Arthur

 

L.J. Gordon, Death at the Iron House Lodge

Rachel Greenaway, Cold Girl

Charlotte Morganti, The Snow Job

Kristina Stanley, Descent

Kevin Thornton, Coiled

 

The winners will be announced at

 THE ARTHUR ELLIS GALA ON JUNE 5

Arthur Ellis Awards Gala at the Arts and Letters Club in Toronto.

The Lawyers of Kill All the Lawyers by William Deverell

In my last post I put up a review of Kill All the Lawyers by William Deverell. The book is so funny and the characters so vivid I have a follow up post.

In the opening four pages Deverell wittily skewers the pretentions of both lawyers and writers of mysteries.

Starting with the lawyers of Vancouver being concerned over the murder of a member of the bar:

For a while, the Bar Association maintained pressure on the authorities to solve this crime. Lawyers don’t get killed. Lawyers were members of a professional elite, safe, sacrosanct, removed from the battle. Police and criminals get killed, not lawyers.

On writers:

Brian examined the typewriter keys, as if seeking coded answers there. No suspects, no motives. One victim. Crushed to death beneath an enormous writer’s block.

The lawyers of Pomeroy, Macarthur, Brovak and Sage are far from the conservative legal stereotype. Flamboyant barely encompasses them.

Brian Pomeroy, while jubilant over the collapse of a Crown case freeing the Kitswuk Five (a group of Indians charged with setting dynamite near a salmon ladder that inadvertently killed two people) is half heartedly trying to end an affair with a luscious bad poet, Charity Slough.

John Brovak snaps in the midst of the Monster, a 6 year long odyssey involving the trafficking in cocaine. The key defendant is 12 fingers Watson (he has two stubby additional digits). It is the fifth month of the current re-trial. In a scene that made me laugh out loud Brovak takes literally a comment from the trial judge that he wanted to see “the goddamn end” of the lawyer. What trial lawyer has not dreamed of some outrageous action to express frustration in the courtroom? A contempt citation ensues and the firm plots his defence wondering whether to get him a “shrink, a lawyer or an exorcist”.

Max Macarthur, to the dismay of his partners, accepts the brief of the Crown to handle the Crown appeal of the Milsom dismissal. They are aghast at his decision as they have always been a defence firm.

Augustina Sage leaves articling student, Wentworth Chance, squirming when she completely disrobes as they share a steam in the office steam sauna.

Within the firm Augustina deals with the civil cases that come their way. Her big case involves a lawsuit by 18 aboriginal former boarding school students against the rector, the Rev. Arnold S. Doyle.

Young Chance finds himself in a situation they do not prepare you for in law school. The firm is defending Minette Lefleur for being “the alleged keeper of a houseboat of prostitution” tied up at Granville Island. Chance is dispatched to the houseboat so their client can show him why she has a very good defence to what would seem a certain conviction. Chance goes weak in the knees at the houseboat when Ms. Lefleur invites him into her bedroom – her “parlour of love” – to show the young man the evidence.

Just keeping up with the characters makes the book fun to read. If you think Deverell had to stretch to create such lawyers read the biography on his website. If anything he underplayed some of the lawyers of his days in the courts of Vancouver.

I have long thought John Grisham was a genius at inventing interesting lawyers. Deverell is his equal. Reading about Pomeroy, Macarthur, Brovak and Sage is never going to be dull.

****

Deverell, William - (2011) - A Trial of Passion; (2011) - Snow Job; (2012) - I'll See You in My Dreams; (2012) - "D" is for William Deverell; (2014) - Kill All the Lawyers

Kill All the Lawyers by William Deverell

16. – 763.) Kill All the Lawyers by William Deverell (1994) – For my 6^th consecutive legal mystery I returned to Canada and the amazing lawyers of Deverell.

The title foretells the plot, which is scary for me since I am an active lawyer. Even worse the killer is targeting criminal defence counsel which is part of my practice. How could Deverell turn on his own? He was a defence lawyer for much of his legal career.

Early in the book Arthur Besterman, described as dogged but not gifted, unexpectedly wins a murder trial when O.D. Milsom’s confession that he killed three women is ruled inadmissible. He had been apprehended by a group of patrolling citizens, the White Berets, who threatened him with emasculation if he did not confess to the crimes.

Besterman, celebrating the victory, is found bludgeoned to death, probably by a baseball bat.

The firm of Pomeroy, Macarthur, Brovak and Sage barely lament their colleague’s passing as they are far too absorbed in their professional and personal crises. My next post will discuss the wild characters that make up the firm.

Brian Pomeroy flees to Costa Rico after an embarrassing incident with a lover becomes public. While there he communicates with Vancouver by letter.

Having always dreamed of writing a great mystery he sets out to actually write a legal mystery with the aid of the directions in Mr. Widgeon's book on how to plot a mystery. Thus within the mystery is a mystery being developed. Pomeroy’s heavy drinking in the tropics seems to spur his muse.

In florid prose Pomeroy explains:

But you want to hear how the novel progesses. Well, the ghostwriter within is still calling the shots. I often feel like a spider enmeshed in his own web, struggling, then submitting to the demon inside, who guides his amanuensis’s hapless hands across the keyboard.

Back in Vancouver the firm is lurching forward.

Articling student, Wentworth Chance, cycles madly about the city delivering documents and picking up documents and searching documents all the while looking for any woman interested in meeting a new graduate from law school.

With Pomeroy in Costa Rico his wife, Caroline, departs for Vancouver Island to join protesters against clear cut logging. Chance is left to feed the owls in the Pomeroy backyard. The big horned owl is called Howland.

At a supper for the bar a box is delivered containing a grenade. Brovak’s swift reaction avoids multiple deaths.

The next morning a letter arrives at the Vancouver Province newspaper containing a message in cut out letters from the paper. It reads:

“Counsellors of crime, Beware the Sword of Justice. Criminal lawyers are marked for DEATH by the Executor of God.”

Below the message “Besterman” is Xed out. “Pomeroy” and “Brovak” are also named.

It closes with a page from the New Testament:

            “The Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of  

            God.”

The signature line contains the name “The Executor”.

A killer called “The Executor”. Why is the word for the administrator of a will, executor, used instead of executioner? Can it be a killer lacking language skills or is it some sophisticated sociopath playing word games? All are puzzled.

Fear roams the courts of Vancouver.

Suspects abound. It appears there are many with grievances against the Vancouver criminal defence bar.

 

Brovak suspects a RCMP officer obsessed with the Monster.

While many other cases are adjourned the Monster continues its grind through the court.

At Pomeroy, Macarthur, Brovak and Sage the lives of the lawyers continue at a frenetic pace despite the danger of the Executor.

Kill All the Lawyers proceeds swiftly filled with clever language and comic situations. I would never have dreamed a book about killing lawyers could be so funny.

****

Kill All the Lawyers is the 11th book of 13 I have read in the 7th Annual Canadian Book Challenge hosted at the Book Mine Set blog.

 

Canadian Crime Fiction and Our Indigenous Peoples

Canadian crime fiction often touches upon the challenges we have as a nation in our treatment of our indigenous peoples variously described as First Nations, Metis, Inuit, Indian and aboriginal. Our history often reflects they have been treated badly by governments and fellow Canadians. Often there has been a perception of them as less Canadian or living on the wrong side of town whether in town or out on the reserve. Canadian crime fiction has dealt with both the prejudice towards indigenous peoples and how they have been respected.

Margot Kinberg in her excellent blog, Confessions of a Mystery Novelist, inspired this post with her post, People Put Me Down 'Cause That's the Side of Town I was Born In. I appreciate her sparking my thoughts.

In The Mystery of the Moonlight Murder by Roderick Benns, a part of the Legacies and Leaders series involving young future Canadian Prime Ministers, a young John Diefenbaker in 1908 refuses to join the prevailing community view that an Indian, River’s Voice, has killed his neighbour. Diefenbaker’s white neighbours are all too ready to put the blame on River’s Voice.

Saskatchewan author Gail Bowen, in her Joanne Kilbourn series, sets out the way Indian people can be looked down upon in Saskatchewan while providing new perspectives that lack prejudice. It is little surprise Gail should have considerable insight into the issues as she taught at the First Nations University in Regina until she retired.

Midway through the series Gail breaks through the stereotype of White – Indian relations by introducing Inspector Alex Kequahtooway as a major character with whom Joanne becomes romantically involved for a time.

Most recently in her current book, The Gifted, she looks at current public perceptions. In the book her husband, Zack Shreeve, is working on a massive redevelopment plan that will change North Central Regina. The neighbourhood in fiction and real life has notoriety across Canada for its high level of crime. There are tensions between the developer and the residents, mainly indigenous.

Personally her daughter is living with Riel Delorme who has come from a difficult indigenous background, been involved with gangs and still has major personal demons.

Scott Young’s two mysteries feature another indigenous Canadian, Matthew “Matteesie” Kitogitak, who has achieved Inspector status. Matteesie, an Inuk from the North West Territories. It is striking that Matteesie is the first Inuk RCMP inspector in the late 1980’s on a force that has been in the Arctic at that time for a century.

 

Inspector Napoleon "Bony" Bonaparte had reached Inspector status in Australia in the 1930's in the series by Arthur Upfield.

In a fictional trial occurring a generation earlier in the early 1960’s in I’ll See You in My Dreams by William Deverell a young Indian, Gabriel Swift, is charged with murder. From a poor reserve near Vancouver the police look down upon him as a “lippy Indian”.

The same book touches upon the problems and abuse that took place in residential schools to which many rural Canadian Indians were sent, especially in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Indian children were sent away to the schools for up to 10 months of the year. Many were abused. All had to deal with efforts to remove their cultural identity.

In Arctic Blue Death by R.J. Harlick there is an exploration of the business of Inuit sculpture and art both historically and present. Inuit artists have gained great respect for their works around the world.

Louise Penny’s most recent book, How the Light Gets In, includes as part of the plot how senior corruptHHowH Quebec police officers had in the reserves in Western Quebec, far from the major cities, manipulated and killed Cree Indians. While I found some of that subplot over the top it reflected an attitude that still exists.

It is a topic that will continue to appear in Canadian crime fiction. Approximately 10% of Saskatchewan’s population is First Nations people. The issues of white and Indian peoples living together is not going to disappear in Canada.

The Jury Master by Robert Dugoni

15. – 762.) The Jury Master by Robert Dugoni – Having enjoyed Murder One last year by Dugoni I decided to read an earlier book in the series featuring lawyer, David Sloane. Murder One was a fine legal mystery and on the shortlist for the 2012 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction.

Based on Murder One and the title of The Jury Master I was expecting another legal mystery. To my disappointment The Jury Master is actually a thriller that happens to feature a lawyer. Even had I read the blurbs on the paperback, which I did not following customary practice, I would have thought it was a legal mystery. To me the title is misleading.

While Sloane certainly is a Jury Master the book has little to do with him being a lawyer.

The opening of the book does show why he is called the Jury Master. Sloane has a rare, almost mystical, talent for connecting with and persuading juries. His closing address wins a case for the defendants in a wrongful death suit. He has regrets over his success.

I was hoping I would learn more about his mastery of juries. Instead, the book veered into a thriller.

Joe Branick, special assistant to the President of the United States, dies in a park in West Virginia. For reasons Sloane cannot fathom Branick, the day he died, was trying to contact Sloane.

Charles Town, West Virginia detective, Tom Molia known to all as “Mole”, balks at the swift effort to have Branick’s death declared a suicide. He is uneasy partly because a young policeman responding to the report of death has disappeared.

Rivers Jones from the Federal Department of Justice, acting on the personal instructions of Parker Madsen the White House Chief of Staff, takes over the investigation into Branick’s death. Mole is even more suspicious.

Finally, in rural Washington, Charles Jenkins a retired CIA operative gets a visit from Alex Hart from the Federal Government. What she brings with her shocks Jenkins.

From there the book races along at excellent thriller pace. There is the occasional need to suspend belief but nothing extreme.

There is a conspiracy at play that is also more credible than the average fictional conspiracy.

Sloane is mystified as he cannot ever recall having a connection to Branick. He does not recall ever dealing with him or working with him or even meeting him.

Aiding Sloane is his long time personal assistant, Tina. She is the assistant of a lawyer’s dreams keeping the office in order and meeting Sloane’s needs almost quicker than he tells what is to be done.

Dugoni does well in letting the reader and Sloane work out the conspiracy. It is frightenly plausible.

It was interesting to receive background on Sloane. He had orphaned at 7 by an accident and raised in foster homes. His youth had been a struggle. Joining the U.S. Marines at 17 set him on his path to success. In this book Sloane is based in San Francisco. By Murder One he is in the state of Washington.

If you are looking for a thriller with a lawyer it is a good book. If you want a legal mystery, move on to a different book. I will still characterize it as a legal mystery for the main character is a lawyer and there are elements of law in the book. (Apr. 9/14)

****

Dugoni, Robert - (2013) - Murder One and Email Exchange with Dugoni on Legal Ethics