Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsMind Blown
Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2018
For those who have never read one of my reviews before, I review as I read, making sure I leave no spoilers. Because of this, my reviews may be weird, until you read the book, but I hope afterwards, you can say, ooooh, that's what the frog meant!
I loved the first book in the series so much that I immediately downloaded this one. As life is wont to do, it interfered, so it took a while to get to it.
I am still in the first few chapters, and see so many grounds for appeal I want to scream. How The Lawyer gets his client away from this "hanging judge" will be interesting. But this is not about an appeal, it is about the trial. So back to it.
Personal note: move to Chicago where the food is nice and cheap.
Chapter 28 starts with a character in shock. I must admit I am but I'm not. Everything is game in criminal court. (I was a paralegal, working for defense attorneys for almost 30 years.) But this is a shocker, even after the first book, where I figuratively had the motions of a fish breathing - jaw up and down. Since I can't do that, therein lies the figuratively.
Reading this brings back vivid memories of an attorney I once
worked for getting popped for selling cocaine. Yes, he used; almost all lawyers in the area did at the time. The ones who didn't? Those are the ones I went to work for. Now the coke-using lawyer had no reason to sell. He went through some pretty hard times before he was vindicated. Not that there's a character in this book facing any dealing charge. In fact, I haven't seen drugs mentioned at all. I mention it only to say that it must be the same for a jurist.
Why is it that when people think other people only have two choices, there is always a third, and that's the choice made? Rhetorical question, of course.
This time, the ending is bittersweet, a little bit of a cliff-hanger, and in its own way, rather funny. I can't wait to read the next one.
Mr. Ellsworth is an excellent writer, as I would expect of a lawyer of so many years. This is a keep up late in the night to see what he comes up with next. I am sure he has a wealth of material to draw from, so I personally am not worried that each book will start to be the same. Criminals are nothing if not crafty - at least in their own minds.
This second book is worthy of reading the third. That alone worth five stars.
