The Attorney [Paperback]

Paul Madriani has taken quiet a few knocks in his legal and personal career, his adventures ably and interetingly told by Steve Martini. 'The Attorney' is no exception, nothing is predictable, there are twists and turns before the final denouement and I thouroughly enjoyed the whole book. Making comparisons to other authors can sometimes be a mistake and Martini should been judged on his own merits. This title is far superior to 'The List' but my all time favorite of this author must be 'Critical Mass'. Well worth reading.

Nearly gave up reading in the first 20 pages - descriptions of Madriani's perfect life, perfect law practice, perfectly amenable and instantly uproot-able partner, perfectly smooth parenting of perfect teenage daughter, perfect rapport with perfect quirky vehicle, and most especially his perfect relationship with perfect-in-bed, perfect-at-work, perfect-for-screen Susan, were all a bit cloying, and too hard to care about. But forgave all this later when the plot started to tumble along nicely.

In contrast, Jonah was certainly a good character in terms of pulling our heartstrings. Likeable, trusting, and with a sense that he must always tell the truth. A decent man pushed into a state of frustrated anger that we could identify with. However, one thing never discussed, which made me hold back in my sympathy for the Hales, was any explanation for why or how their daughter had actually turned out so off-the-rails. I guess we were supposed to draw the conclusion it was just luck, that Jessica was fated to always be a "wrong-un", and that the Hales parenting methods were saintly and that the alienation of their daughter was entirely her own fault. A bit simple.

Good suspense: Various artefacts kept me expecting plot turns that never materialised:
There was frightening scope for further child kidnappings, especially when you consider who would have previously learned the layout of and access to who's home, and how. There were also various court cases going, files being read by Susan etc, on which "could not be discussed", and could potentially have allowed for alternative strange link-ups between the cases that Susan and Martini were working on. All these were effective, though possibly self-cooked, red herrings for me, so I was bracing for twists coming from totally different directions to that which they eventually did.
This was very enjoyable, and also meant I didn't guess the real twists, or the ending.

Least plausible bit: bamboozling, or even killing, several heavily-armed drug baron's goons with a small bottle of over-the-counter pharmacy ware.

Best bits of interaction between characters: Wisecracking ego jostling and dialogue between Bowen and colleagues at the crime scene, Murphy and Jason shakedown, and the building work politics between Susan and Bowen. Also some nice ironic comments from Martini.

Despite some bones with it, found the whole book sped along and was suspenseful, and I did want to know what had happened and what would happen next.

Conclusion: A good, fast read, that does add up, and has highly colourful characters,
and good explanations of legal goings on. Enjoyed it enough to look for another Martini book next.

I spent a lot of the night finishing the book, as I found it an addictive page-turner. After closing the book, the complexities of the the case meant I spent even more time just lying awake, trying to count cigars, and work out where the one at the murder scene had come from - contrary to what a few folk have said about this book on amazon dot com reviews, I do actually think the evidence details of the plot do tie up, and that it is possible to trace each fish scale or cigarette butt back to where it came from.

I have to disagree with the prvious reviewer, as I really enjoyed this book. Martini sustains the tension throughout and although the ending can be spotted coming you're never quite sure that it will be as you expect - in fact, I thought the way Martini handled the ending was one of the most interesting features of the book. Rather better than recent Grisham books, although I'd agree it doesn't measure up to the master at his best.