Bum Rap by Paul Levine, a Mysterious Review.

Review: Paul Levine brings together the characters of his two series, defense attorney Jake Lassiter of Miami, and the legal team of Steve Solomon and Victoria Lord of South Beach, in Bum Rap.

Steve has been hired by a young Russian girl, Nadia Delova, who wants to quit her job and get married. But she needs to get her visa and money owed her by her boss, Nicolai Gorev, the owner of Club Anastasia. Gorev is a member of the Russian mob, who brings young women to America to work as "bar-girls". They entice wealthy men to drink too much of the club's cheap alcoholic drinks, spending thousands of dollars that goes directly to the mob. The bosses hold on to the girl's visas and hold back their wages until the girls are of no more use to them. When Steve and Nadia arrive at Gorev's office anything that can go wrong does go wrong. Gorev does not want Nadia to leave; she is the best bar-girl he has. So he refuses to return her visa or her money. Before Steve knows it, Nicolai is shot between the eyes. Nadia throws a gun to Steve and quickly opens the safe, grabs her visa and money and leaves through a back entrance leaving Steve locked in the room with a dead man and a smoking gun. Not surprisingly, Steve is arrested for the murder of Nicolai. There is no proof anyone else was even in that room.

Victoria, as Steve's partner in both the law firm and life, cannot be his attorney, so she calls upon the best attorney she knows to defend Steve: Jake Lassiter. Jake, a former NFL line-backer-turned-lawyer, is getting tired of practicing, and just wants to retire and move to Vermont. But he can't resist Victoria's plea to take the case. It is up to Jake and Victoria to track down Nadia, who it appears has left the city with the man she intends to marry. They want to find her before she can be questioned and possibly arrested by the FBI, or eliminated by the Russian Mafia. Jake knows finding Nadia is Steve's only chance of escaping a first degree murder charge.

Bum Rap is a fast moving and thoroughly entertaining cross-over legal thriller featuring characters from both of the author's series. With plenty of action and close calls coupled with some unexpected twists and turns in a complex, if also well-structured plot, it is a novel you won't want to put down until the defense rests.

Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of Bum Rap.

Illegal
Bantam (Hardcover), March 2009
ISBN-13: 9780553806731; ISBN-10: 0553806734

Bum Rap

A Jake Lassiter/Solomon & Lord Legal Thriller by Paul Levine