Ready
for the Defense
Non-series
Mike
Langan
Treble
Heart Books (Trade Paperback)
ISBN-10: 1-932695-70-2 (1932695702)
ISBN-13: 978-1-932695-70-0 (9781932695700)
Publication Date: May 2008
List Price: $13.50
Synopsis (from
the publisher): Hank Fisher is not your typical first-year criminal
defense lawyer. Acting more like Sherlock Holmes than Oliver Wendell
Holmes in the courtroom, he exonerates clients by catching the real bad
guys.
His unconventional victories come at the chagrin of his
larger-than-life boss, Mac, who prefers to pull the twelfth juror from
the brink of conviction the old-fashioned way, through an artful
cross-examination and an impassioned closing argument.
But before the dysfunctional duo can rescue their new client, a United
States senator, from the jaws of an apparent IRS investigation, a
hit-and-run attack rips their law firm apart, putting one person in a
hearse and another in a coma.
Hank must find the killer while defending the senator all by himself in
a criminal investigation that is spiraling out of control.
Review:
As heroes go, thirty-two-year-old criminal defense lawyer and amateur
sleuth, Hank Fisher, of Mike Langan’s second novel Ready for
the Defense is more marshmallow than hard-boiled. And his first-person
story of finding his boss’s killer and defending a federal
Senator in Washington DC in an IRS investigation is often like a
routine between a Jewish stand-up comic and a Mickey Spillane wannabe,
but with Fisher as far more of a punching bag than Spillane ever was.
Still in all, it’s a good, fast-paced, action-oriented story
for today’s times with its focus on Washington scandals,
terrorism attacks, racial profiling and biological warfare.
When his story begins Fisher’s got a lot going for him. A
former English teacher with a Jewish mother and an Episcopal minister
father, he’s embarking on a promising career with a bear of a
boss, six-foot, five inch 300 pound Mac MacPherson, a great guy and a
great mentor with a great family. But not too many pages along, and
Fisher’s world crumbles when a speeding car crashes into Mac,
Fisher, and Senator Victoria Serling, the duo’s newest client
and candidate for the CIA Director’s position as they prepare
to meet to discuss allegations of fraud against the Senator. Mac is
killed, the Senator hospitalized in a coma, and while Fisher narrowly
escapes serious injury, he’s left on his own to defend the
Senator and discover who targeted her and Mac. It’s a tough
assignment given his inexperience, a dearth of clues, and a public
allegation Mac has bribed a juror. There’s increasing
tension, too, between him, the local police, FBI agents “Rice
and Beans”, and various special interest racial and religious
groups in Washington. As well, he’s lugging the memory of an
older teenaged brother who died years ago in a car crash, and
he’s dodging a female client’s husband who wants to
beat him up because of a restraining order he secured for her. He gets
support, though, from friend and ex-cop Roger Lynch and Dr. Amelia
Fuentes, Senator Serling’s niece and his attending physician
during his brief stay in the hospital after the hit-and-run. The
Senator’s husband, Dr. Larry Marshall, the former owner of
the biopharm giant, Panacea, is helpful too, even if controlling. As
the story progresses, support strengthens from Roger and Amelia but
dirty dealings at Panacea lead to increasing suspicion about Marshall
and the new owners, as well as some of the Senator’s own
staff and employees at the firms Fisher and Roger investigate. In the
end, however, Fisher gets it right and after bending and even breaking
a couple of laws his marshmallow centre hardens into hardboiled
righteousness. With Mac’s murder avenged, the Senator cleared
and discharged from the hospital, and Amelia trusting him after a tiff
about lying to her, he partners with Roger to form
“DC’s newest white collar crime investigator
firm,” despite his mother’s admonition,
“Nobody likes a snoop, dear. It’s only one step
above being a pawnbroker.”
Ready
for the Defense, following on the
heels
of Langan’s first novel, Dark
Horse,
is a pleasant enough debut for English teacher turned lawyer turned
snoop, Hank Fisher. Whether he continues on at “one step
above being a pawnbroker” remains to be seen.
Special thanks to M. Wayne Cunningham (mw_cunningham@telus.net) for contributing his review of Ready for the Defense and to Mike Langan for providing a copy of the book for this review.
Review Copyright © 2008 — M. Wayne Cunningham — All Rights Reserved — Reprinted with Permission
Have you read Ready for the Defense? How would you rate it?
Novels by this author …
Dark Horse
Five Star (Hardcover), February 2008
ISBN-10: 1-59414-664-0 (1594146640)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59414-664-0 (9781594146640)
Ready for the Defense
Treble Heart Books (Trade Paperback), May 2008
ISBN-10: 1-932695-70-2 (1932695702)
ISBN-13: 978-1-932695-70-0 (9781932695700)
Omnimystery
keywords for Ready for the Defense
...
Location(s) referenced: Washington
DC.
