Bennie Rosato is the heroine and narrator of Dead Ringer, and the book opens with a very compelling series of episodes that display the problems that any small legal practice faces during hard economic conditions. Bennie is losing clients right and left to bankruptcy, and the clients she has aren't paying her. She's behind on the rent, and has laid off one staff person. No new clients seem to be on the horizon when she gets an unexpected call from a courtly Frenchman whose company has been hurt by an illegal boycott. But . . . the case will be a class action suit, and Bennie has never done one before. Soon, she's mixing it up with the multimillion dollar class action lawyers who expect her to pony up $30,000 to play in the contingent fee case. If that isn't enough, someone has started impersonating her and is using her credit cards to send unwanted goods to the office. Whenever Bennie thinks she has gotten her head above water, she has another setback.
Before long, she's engaged forced to defend her very honor by solving two mysterious crimes. In the process, the danger grows to unacceptable levels . . . and a mysterious, handsome stranger becomes her Good Samaritan. With her hear aflutter, she finds it hard to concentrate on her legal practice.
Dead Ringer started off to be a remarkably entertaining book. Around two-thirds of the way through, the book began to unwind from its excellent beginning. The first weakness is that Ms. Scottoline makes too little use of the other characters who work at the Rosato firm. Although they are in many scenes, the narration doesn't shift to them . . . or give us enough of a sense about how they feel. As a result, the associates and staff seem more than a little too understanding about Bennie's financial problems. Why aren't they out looking for another job . . . or at least petrified by their financial peril?
The mysteries turn out to be way too easy to resolve . . . and Bennie's many complications unwind themselves like a slip knot. Although it's impressive as a plot device, the result feels hollow to the reader.
Also, litigators seldom have financial problems unless they only do contingent fee work. If Bennie is all but unbeatable in court, why weren't clients lined up at her door all along?
Her disregard for police procedures also seems flagrant. She really is obstructing one police investigation, and all she gets is one growl along the way.
As a result of these flights into fantasy, the book ends up not being a serious effort . . . but rather as scaffolding for a number of fairly humorous gags. But slapstick isn't a fine novel, even though it can be entertaining.
Those who have enjoyed Ms. Scottoline's other books will probably enjoy this one as well. If you like lawyer humor and don't know Ms. Scottoline's work, feel free to try this one. If you want a taut legal thriller that seems so real it scares you, look elsewhere.
As I finished the book, I thought about why novels tend to have great endings rather than great beginnings. I assumed that Dead Ringer would have an ending as good as the beginning. Perhaps authors realize that it's more important to leave you on a high than to start you with a bang!
