Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)in town. Rosenfeldt worked in marketing for Tri-Star pictures before trying his hand at screenplays, and this, his first novel. He has a smooth, confident style and a hero steeped in courtroom shenanigans. Like Coben's hero, Myron Bolitar, Andy Carpenter is a sports nut and a smartass, but a loveable one. Like Koontz's heroes, Andy is hung up on his Golden Retriever, Tara, and much of the charm and humor of the character comes out in his frequent references to her.
Carpenter's first story (I say first, because the book cries out for a sequel or two or thirteen) involves an appeal in a case of capital murder. His case is tangled in his past with his beloved father, and his feeling that there is more than meets the eye to his dad's request for him to defend a man that he, himself, had convicted. Tangled with the defense of his client, Willie Miller, is Andy's own broken marriage and his attempt at reconciliation after he's already fallen in love with someone new.
The plot to prove Willie's innocence is less than original, and a little shallow, but the witty repartee and diarization style of writing adopted by Rosenfeldt is charming and breezy. Many small humorous passages will make you laugh, even though the scene is serious. Carpenter's explanation to Miller of why he will probably still lose the trial..."suppose Dinky University's football team goes down to Florida State and loses ....but the game doesn't count because FSU's water boy wasn't eligible....Dinky is still Dinky". Carpenter's rants against DNA, his soliloquy to the Yankees and his betting contests with his father, courtroom antics such as the stunt with Kevin's cousin -- all are irreverent and totally New Jersey in their origin and humor.
It's not a great novel, but it ranks as a great and entertaining first effort, and Rosenfeldt will have a terrific career if there are more like this to come!
Read it, enjoy,laugh!
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