[.ca] The Letter of the Law (ISBN 0446617253)

From Amazon.com:
Casey Jordan is a successful Texas criminal defense attorney who likes to take on the kinds of cases that grab headlines and CNN interviews. Her ambition is stoked when she gets an opportunity to represent her former law professor in a capital murder case. Eric Lipton has been accused of the mutilation death of a young law student with whom he was sexually involved. Although the evidence points to his guilt, Casey is confident that she can get him off and certain that he is innocent. It's a promising setup for a legal thriller, but a seemingly unrelated murder in the novel's opening pages will nag at readers. By the time the relationship between the two crimes is teased out, the solution to the first crime seems like an anticlimax. Lipton is a truly evil man. Casey is not particularly likable either: her hardscrabble background has propelled her into a sterile, loveless marriage to a wealthy man, and her childhood dream of defending indigent clients now seems like a remnant of youthful idealism. The novel's more interesting figures are Donald Sales, the law student's father, a traumatized Vietnam veteran whose grief and rage fuels the narrative, and Bob Bolinger, an Austin cop who believes that Lipton is a serial killer responsible for other, similar crimes across the country. Like Lipton's pathology, which is unveiled long after his guilt is proven to the reader's (if not the jury's) satisfaction, Casey's change of heart--about her client, her husband, and her ideals--is late and lukewarm. Before it occurs, Tim Green has a chance to showcase his heroine's courtroom skills and illustrate why she's among the fastest legal guns in the Lone Star state. A workmanlike addition to a popular genre, Letter of the Law won't keep you up at night, but it's a satisfying hammock read on an Indian summer afternoon. --Jane Adams

green starts a new track:
Thankfully, Tim Green moves on to another type of fiction and leaves the NFL-based thrillers behind with The Letter of the Law, a serial killer thriller with a legal basis. The main character is a strong female attorney reminiscent of Madison McCall from his NFL fiction. The villain is quite different this time, and that makes for more interesting suspense. This book is not on the level of Greg Iles, for example, but is still entertaining and an easy diversion. Being predictable is not the worst thing a book can be, but it is certainly nice to be surprised too.

Sometimes the Guilty Go Free:
Marcia Sales eviscerated body was discovered by her paperboy. She'd been a beautiful co-ed studying law at the University of Texas. Austin cop Bob Bolinger has a list of suspects and he's not crossing anybody out, not even the girl's father. However his prime candidate for the murder is Eric Lipton, one of Marcia's law professors. Lipton flees, is caught near the airport and a bloody lingerie is found in his baggage. He claims he was sexually involved with Marcia. Lipton engages former student Casey Jordan, who is driven by success, but all through the trial Casey is uneasy, because Bolinger is convinced of Lipton's guilt, not only that, he thinks the man is a serial killer. Finally the verdict is in, it's about to be read. Lipton leans toward Casey and admits to the murder. And now the killing begins. Reviewed by Vesta Irene

DEEP SCARLET LETTER:
Books like THE LETTER OF THE LAW continue to show how dangerous and risky it is to seek companionship on the Internet. The opening chapter of this tense little thriller is ample proof. How it relates to the main gist of the novel takes a long time, but it does make sense. Green's novels are well crafted, even if sometimes he becomes a little too cinematic in the way the story unfolds. Casey Jordan is not the most likeable of heroines...she's ambitious, always concerned about the way she is perceived; she likes her rich life, her uncaring husband and her notoriety. Once she takes on Eric Lipton, her former law professor, however, things start caving in on her. Lipton is a demonic character, full of pride and arrogance, and the reader will doubt his innocence from the start. Once his trial is over, Casey must face Donald Sales, the father of the victim whom she intimated may have been more than just a daddy. Meanwhile, Bob Bolinger, a crusty older detective (think Lee J. Cobb) is convinced Lipton is a serial killer. Green twists the plot for some interesting surprises, particularly in the relationship between Sales and Casey. An involving and engrossing legal thriller, which despite its flaws, is one of Green's more intriguing novels.

Can Justice Be Served?:
This is my first Tim Green book and I was delighted. After putting off reading this book for months, I have to kick myself for not reading it sooner. The book is about a lawyer named Casey who is asked to represent her law professor. He is accused of killing a student by cutting her up and removing her gall bladder. Pretty disgusting. The whole premise of the book is how Casey manages to get the professor acquitted to then find out that he may have done it. In order to free the professor, she had to attack the character of the dead girl's father on the stand. In freeing her professor, Casey is now stuck between a serial killer and the dead girls father's hatred. What makes this book unique is that Casey is not that likable for heroine. She is shown as being very materialistic and doing whatever she can to win a case. However that all changes when she sets a killer free and she starts questioning where she went wrong. Good book and Tim Green does a great job of laying out the plot.

A little more research next time:
This book succeeds or fails on the character actions between Donald Sales and Casey Jordan. For me it failed. Casey Jordon is hot shot criminal defense lawyer who gets a serial killer off the hook. The bad guy is Professor Lipton (as in tea) who gets his jollies carving up women and stealing their gall bladders. Donald Sales is the father of one of Lipton's victims and he has basically two modes of action: suicidal and homicidal. Considering how Law Enforcement generally approaches things like this, Sales should have been locked up and the key thrown away. Instead, he's treated as a Good Ol' Boy. If you know anything about guns, then you'll probably gag on the descriptions. I don't think the author got one right. There is a detective named Bollinger who knows right away that Lipton is the bad guy, but fails to prove the case. Evidence might have helped. There is an FBI guy name Unger who happens the run into Lipton in a high priced whore house. This is just another of the improbable plot developments that you stumble across in this book. Finally, about 20 pages from the end you find out what the connection to the prologue is--pretty weak. This book is a quick, mindless read for a pleasant afternoon.