Rating: 
Summary: Okay, but not Great
Review: While this mystery/thriller is entertaining enough - the plot is not very believable and it fails to live up to the hype generated by reviews here. Just a quick synopsis of the plot: Jack Hammond is lawyer on the downturn after an indiscretion with a client's wife. From an up and coming lawyer at a prestigious law firm he finds himself working alone and scrambling for the most difficult and least well paying of clients-those who need court appointed attorneys. But he still has his values. His friend, a very down and out Doug Townsend, dies of a drug overdose that seems very suspicious. Jack starts to poke around thinking there isn't something quite right and finds an unusual link between Doug, a practically homeless former drug addict living on the fringe of the ghetto, and Michele Sonnier, a famous, wealthy, opera diva. The plot really thickens when Jack discovers that Sonnier's husband, the CEO of Horizon, a pharmaceutical company with a breakout drug for hepatitis, is soon to go public. And it turns out Doug Townsend was also working for Horizon off the books as a computer hacker. The company he was stealing information from was a potential Horizon competitor where several people in a test study for a better drug for hepatitis died. In the meantime Jack has an affair with Michelle Sonnier as he unravels the most unlikely of conspiracies. There are two key problems with this novel. First, the plot is implausible, which is a distraction. The second problem is the characters, other than Jack and Michelle Sonnier, are caricatures. The computer hacker Jack befriends to help him out, the ghetto kingpin, the secretary, the CEO of Horizon and his partner, all are very boilerplate characters. Nevertheless, I did enjoy the novel. But I wouldn't recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Okay, but not Great
Review: While this mystery/thriller is entertaining enough - the plot is not very believable and it fails to live up to the hype generated by reviews here. Just a quick synopsis of the plot: Jack Hammond is lawyer on the downturn after an indiscretion with a client's wife. From an up and coming lawyer at a prestigious law firm he finds himself working alone and scrambling for the most difficult and least well paying of clients-those who need court appointed attorneys. But he still has his values. His friend, a very down and out Doug Townsend, dies of a drug overdose that seems very suspicious. Jack starts to poke around thinking there isn't something quite right and finds an unusual link between Doug, a practically homeless former drug addict living on the fringe of the ghetto, and Michele Sonnier, a famous, wealthy, opera diva. The plot really thickens when Jack discovers that Sonnier's husband, the CEO of Horizon, a pharmaceutical company with a breakout drug for hepatitis, is soon to go public. And it turns out Doug Townsend was also working for Horizon off the books as a computer hacker. The company he was stealing information from was a potential Horizon competitor where several people in a test study for a better drug for hepatitis died. In the meantime Jack has an affair with Michelle Sonnier as he unravels the most unlikely of conspiracies. There are two key problems with this novel. First, the plot is implausible, which is a distraction. The second problem is the characters, other than Jack and Michelle Sonnier, are caricatures. The computer hacker Jack befriends to help him out, the ghetto kingpin, the secretary, the CEO of Horizon and his partner, all are very boilerplate characters. Nevertheless, I did enjoy the novel. But I wouldn't recommend it.
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