Book Review/Tour: BUM RAP by Paul Levine

First Chapter, First Paragraph is hosted weekly by Bibliophile by the Sea. Share the first paragraph of your current read. Also visit Teaser Tuesdays meme hosted by Jenn.

Bum Rap: A Thriller by Paul Levine, Published by Thomas & Mercer (July 1, 2015)

First chapter, first paragraph:
The gunshot hit Nicolai Gorev squarely between the eyes. His head snapped back, then whipped forward, and he toppled face-first onto his desk. 

There were two other people in the office of Club Anastasia.

My comments:
Paul Levine describes the book best in his Author's Note at the end of the book.
 "Bum Rap brings together Lassiter, the lineback-turned lawyer, and mismatched law partners Steve Solomon and Victoria Lord."

I thought it was clever of the author to bring together in Bum Rap the main characters of his two separate thriller series. The book becomes just as much a love triangle possibility as a legal thriller, when Victoria enlists Lassiter's help to clear her partner in life and law, Solomon, of a murder that would bring him many years in jail if he is convicted. As the sparks fly between Victoria and Lassiter, the two fight to find legal ways to "bend the system" to bring about a kind of ultimate justice and free Solomon.

Legal thriller readers will love this book. Though not lawyerly-inclined, I was equally intrigued by the arguments and strategies Lord and Lassiter use to try to bring about a desired outcome. But first they have to find out what really happened the day the Russian mafia type was killed, supposedly by Solomon. Solomon is saying something different, however, but is it the truth?

Objective rating: 4.5/5

Book description:
NFL linebacker-turned-lawyer Jake Lassiter... gets a call from Victoria Lord, the better half of hot local legal team Solomon & Lord. Her partner in life and law has been arrested for murder. What’s worse: the only person who can clear him has fled the city. Now it’s up to Jake and Victoria to track down the witness—a stunning “Bar girl”—before she’s roped in by the feds…or eliminated by the Russian mob. (publisher)

PAUL LEVINE worked as a newspaper reporter, a law professor and a trial lawyer before becoming a full-time novelist. His books have been translated into 23 languages; Levine has won the John D. MacDonald fiction award and has been nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe Award, the Macavity, the International Thriller Writers Award, the Shamus Award, and the James Thurber Humor Prize. Connect with Paul Website | Facebook | Twitter

Thanks to TLC Book Tours and the author for a review copy of this book.

For more reviews of Bum Rap, and giveaways, visit the tour schedule.

New Book Release: Accused by Lisa Scottoline: Waiting on Wednesday

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted weekly by Jill at Breaking the Spine. What new releases are you eagerly waiting for. Link your post to Breaking the Spine.

Title: Accused: a Rosato and Associates Novel by Lisa Scottoline
To be published October 29, 2013; St. Martin's Press
Genre: legal thriller

Publisher description: "For her crime fiction, Scottoline created the all-female law firm of Rosato & Associates, thrilling readers with her twisty, fast-paced plots and her cast of strong and relatable female characters. Now Bennie Rosato, Mary DiNunzio, Judy Carrier, and Anne Murphy are back with all cylinders firing in Accused.

Mary Dinuzio  is about to take on a case brought to the firm by a thirteen-year-old genius with a penchant for beekeeping. Allegra Gardner’s sister Fiona was murdered six years ago, and it seemed like an open-and-shut case: the accused, Lonnie Stall, was seen fleeing the scene; his blood was on Fiona and her blood was on him; most damningly, Lonnie Stall pleaded guilty. But Allegra believes Lonnie is innocent and has been wrongly imprisoned. The Gardner family is one of the most powerful in the country and Allegra’s parents don’t believe in reopening the case, so taking it on is risky. But the Rosato & Associates firm can never resist an underdog. Was justice really served all those years ago? It will take a team of unstoppable female lawyers, plus one thirteen-year-old genius, to find out. "

I have not read any of Scottoline's books and am eagerly awaiting the release of this one. What new book are you waiting for?

If you are having trouble leaving a comment, click on Book Dilettante and try again. 

Book Review: Paydirt by Paul Levine

A Super Bowl thriller...
Bobby Gallagher has it all...a great job, a loving wife, and an adoring son. Then he’s fired; his wife divorces him; and he goes bankrupt. Now, to reclaim his life, all he has to do is rig the Super Bowl, win a huge bet, and avoid getting killed. (book description)

Paydirt: a Novel by Paul Levine
CreateSpace (2011), Paperback, 338 pages
Free on Kindle for two days, including today Feb. 4
Objective rating: 4.5/5

Comments: Easier said than done, to leave his job, as Bobby is employed by his wealthy and influential father-in-law who also owns the football team going to the Super Bowl. The father-in-law is not happy with Bobby's leaving and sees it as a betrayal. Bobby also becomes estranged from his wife because of this and works hard to keep part custody of his young son. Falling to the lowest level of his career possible, Bobby somehow fights to get his family back and to thwart his father-in-law who is set on destroying him at the Super Bowl.

I learned a lot about how betting is done on football games, what the rules are, and how sometimes they are broken. This is fiction, but the legal aspects keep you on edge as you watch Bobby fight to keep his principles intact and get back up on his feet. I found the romantic aspect - Bobby's continued love for his wife who doesn't seem to know what's going on between Bobby and her father-  a bit unrealistic and slightly sentimental, but overall this was an enjoyable thriller and just in time for the real Super Bowl.

I received a review ecopy of this book.

Teaser Tuesday: Justice: a Novel by Jay Lillie

Teaser Tuesdays asks you to choose sentences at random from your current read. Identify the author and title for readers.

"This is getting very political, Chief."

"Yeah, you should let the Legal Department handle it. You'll get caught in between, and believe me it will not be fun if you do." ( p. 24)

Title: Justice: A Novel by Jay Lillie
Paperback: 250 pages
Publisher: Pentland Press (NC)
Publication date: March 2011
Genre: political thriller, mystery

Source: author

Book description: Julia Gold, a smart young detective in the homicide division of the Chicago Police Department, and Kate Stevens, a law clerk for a Justice on the United States Supreme Court, have their hands full solving the murder of a 26 year-old journalist found dead in a back alley on the southside of Chicago.The author's third novel takes Julia and Kate on a trek through Chicago, New York, Paris, New Orleans and Capitol Hill to find the answers. Meanwhile, the White House has its own mysteries to solve when it's discovered the President's most recent appointment to the Supreme Court is an illegal alien. Gordon Cox, Kate's fiance is brought in by the President to help manage the political damage and keep the newest Justice on the Court... (and) Kate finds the real reason her friend was murdered. (Goodreads)

Guest Post/ Book Tour: Jeffrey A. Cohen, The Killing of Mindi Quintana: A Novel

Guest post by Jeffrey A. Cohen, author of The Killing of Mindi Quintana, published May 16, 2010.

Welcome, Jeffrey. What can you tell us about your new crime novel?

Jeffrey:
My Courtroom Thrillers: Exposing Injustice Through Fiction

As a Philadelphia lawyer whose novels always include some courtroom drama, I am often asked what it is that fascinates me so much about trials.

Well, it’s this: We pluck twelve people from life, call them society, and suspend time while an accused sits in purgatory waiting to be cast out or accepted back among us. An epic battle ensues. At stake is freedom for the accused, vindication (or what can be had of it) for victims, and fairness in the process for all of us. In short, it is justice that hangs in the balance.

As a child I would skip school, take the train to center city Philadelphia and watch criminal trials at our imposing City Hall. My father is a lawyer who had an office across the street; he’d circle trials for me in the Legal Intelligencer, and send me over. He considered what I’d be watching an education as important as anything I’d learn at school, and it certainly was.

Even for a child, it was easy to mark the transformation in the courtroom as the bailiff presented, and the judge took the bench, and the jury was seated. Only moments before, the lawyers and courtroom personnel had been milling about, at ease and informal, gossiping, laughing at a joke, shaking hands or pointing their hellos. Perhaps defendant’s counsel and the prosecutor had stood aside for a moment and chatted—this was usually amicable—and then returned to their tables to make notes, or the defense attorney to confer with the defendant. The judge himself might even have entered the hubbub from his chambers and almost unnoticed conferred with a clerk; or I might have glimpsed him on the phone through his open chambers door, already enrobed or in his suit.

But now, the courtroom called to order, informality evaporated like a disappeared smile. And I would watch amazed as these courtroom actors, these joke tellers and back slappers of a moment ago, slipped unmistakably, even awesomely, into roles much larger than themselves. This is how I experienced it as a child. And it hasn’t much changed, my reverence for the adversarial process by which we Americans render justice.

But, of course, justice isn’t always rendered. The spark for my novels is always an injustice, a particular miscarriage or a systemic problem. It will be an injustice that comes back to me in my thoughts over a long period of time, and increasingly gets to me, until I find myself considering how to expose and address it through fiction. Really what it is, is that I want to get to the bottom of it and understand it myself.

For example, the spark for my novel The Killing of Mindi Quintana was the true-life story of convicted murderer Jack Henry Abbott. Abbott became a cultural icon and literary shooting star when his book of prison letters, In the Belly of the Beast, was published in 1981.

One injustice of the Abbott case is that this evil man’s letters, irrationally justifying his lifetime of violent crime, resulted in public sympathy, literary acclaim, and even his parole. Another injustice, tragic, is that within six weeks of his release Abbott killed again, the night before a laudatory review of his book would appear in the New York Times. A final injustice—the one that got me writing—is that Richard Adan, the 22 year-old waiter Abbott stabbed in the heart for refusing him use of an employees-only restroom, was pursuing his dream of becoming a writer himself.

The Killing of Mindi Quintana deals with the injustice of fame and acclaim through murder. It takes issue with our attribution to our violent criminals of special talents, bravery, charisma and charm; our remaking of them as folk heroes and sympathetic anti-heroes. In The Killing of Mindi Quintana a frustrated department store clerk kills, and his little life turns big. The object now of fascination, he pens the book about his victim everybody wants, and drags her through the mud. A new celebrity murderer takes the stage. A comeuppance is in order.

I’m currently working on my second novel, A Plea for Leniency, in which a white-shoe criminal defense attorney has just lost his case defending a major corporate America CEO. Convinced he’s failed an innocent man, A Plea for Leniency is his unorthodox request of the prosecutor for compassion in recommending sentence. It is the truth about his client he could not tell in court. The novel takes us from Wall Street to the mountain slums of Rio de Janeiro; and from astounding business success to ruin, and in some ways back. We come to see that that this lawyer pleads for compassion not only for his client, but for himself. And we find reasons for mercy.

In A Plea for Leniency the injustice addressed is that of painting CEOs, in an age of popular anger, with too broad a brush; and the scant evidence upon which several high profile CEOs have been prosecuted. Not all corporate CEOs are crooks, not even all accused CEOs are crooks. Mine isn’t, yet he’s swept up in the cultural rage of the Enron and post-Enron eras, and he’s convicted. There’s no constituency for CEOs, maybe they don’t need one—but there should always be a constituency for those wrongfully accused of crime, and those convicted on too little evidence.

For more information on the author:
Website: http://www.jeffreyacohenbooks.com/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/JeffreyACohen

My comments:  I thought this was an interesting story about profiting from crime and the injustice of it. In this novel, the criminal is thwarted at the end, however, in a clever plan.

My only objection to the novel is the title, The Killing of Mindi Quintana, which gives too much of the plot away, right up front, especially since Mindi's demise is not until the middle of the book. I kept reading just to find out when and how, not what would happen. The book became more suspenseful in the second half, however, with a twist at the very end.

Thanks to Jeffrey A. Cohen for explaining legal thrillers and his book in such good detail and so convincingly.

TLC Book Tour provided an ARC of the book for this tour. Click on the link for other stops on the tour.