Rating: 
Summary: Good but not her best effort
Review: I have become hooked on her books. This one has a good story line and a suprise ending, however, it just floats along. Her best effort was, in my opinion, The Vendetta Defense. I think that she could have made more about Ann Murphy and maybe she will in the future. Still it is a quick and interesting read....and after all she dedicated the book to her readers.... so it can't be all bad.
Rating: 
Summary: IF THIS HAD BEEN IN PAPERBACK, IT WOULD HAVE FLOATED AWAY!!!
Review: Bennie, Mary and Judy are back and Anne is the new kid attorney on the block. Anne is smart as a whip, but as flaky and insecure as only "a wet behing the ears" new attorney can seem to be. Her facade only serves to hide the inner turmoil with which she has lived all her life. This book certainly fits the category of light summer reading and, if you are a true Scottoline fan like me, you will certainly enjoy it.
Rating: 
Summary: A big disappointment
Review: I don't like to review books that I don't really like, I normally just review the ones I read that I can give at least 4 stars too.But....this book was such a disappointment. I normally like her books, I like the characters in the law firm that Ms. Scottoline writes about, and I normally like the stories. This book, however, was silly, very silly, and very hard to get through. Hard really to explain, just not a good addition to the Lisa Scottoline library.I felt like it was rushed and the characters were portrayed as silly and shallow. Not like themselves at all. It won't stop me from reading her next ones, but I might wait for other reviews or paper before I rush out to purchase it! So...Ms. Scottoline, if you are out there, try again, and any new readers to Ms. Scottoline, try her others before you read this one, I'm afraid this one will discourage you from reading her others, and I hate for that to happen.
Rating:
Summary: It is what it is...
Review: Attorney Lisa Scottoline's ninth and newest thriller is lighter than air, set in Philadelphia over a Fourth of July weekend. As these things go, it's a well-crafted and totally readable book.Her heroine is a troubled beauty, Anne Murphy, a recent hire in the all-female law firm featured in earlier Scottoline mysteries, who's come East to escape a stalker (or "erotomaniac"). In a case of mistaken identity, Murphy is thought to have been murdered at the outset of the weekend. She evades the media, reveals herself to a few trusted associates, and sets out to catch the killer, presumably the stalker, and thus ensure her future safety. Along the way, there are little nuggets of wisdom -- the importance of family and so forth. Here's a book that you could whip through in an afternoon on the beach, or a three-hour plane ride. It's entertaining enough, in a cotton candy sort of way. It's nicely done, but like cotton candy, it just sort of melts away.
Rating:
Summary: Different, but still very good
Review: There is not a great deal of suspense in this novel, even though it has a mildly surprising ending. Actually it has two endings. The penultimate chapter containing the second, surprise ending, almost seems to have been added by the author in order to create a twist. The book, however, is an enjoyable read whose focus is on bonding among high powered female lawyers. The interplay between the characters is sharp and witty. While a female lawyer is always at the center of Ms. Scottoline's novels, each has their own distinctive personality. She has an ability to put into the minds of her principal character thoughts, which if the character does not really have, she should have.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: There were some many things in this book that were unbelievable that I almost put the book away. The author goes overboard with how beutiful the main chartacter,Anne Murphy is. It appears she may have stolen her love for shoes from Sara Jessica Parkers chartacter on Sex and The City. So happens they are both obsessed with same over priced brand of shoes and shoe poor. The relationship she develops with her associates was very irritating to me. AND her quotes for "I Love Lucy" were so lame. "I have some "splainen" to do." Yuk! I think the Author was trying to write Anne Murphy as a wacky Lucille Ball Chartacter. Although, the ending was surprising and tender it was ruined when the chartacter returned to her home to do her own "clean up." It was truly disgusting.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I don't know, but it strikes me as a sign of desperation or laziness when an author abandons her previous lead characters and adds a brand new one out of nowhere, particularly when it is a best-selling author such as this. I mean, the reason the previous books were best-sellers were because people grew to love the characters, right? But this is what happens in "Courting Trouble," and the result is a very thin and unsatisfying read and a heroine who is very one-dimensional and uninteresting. I have to put this book in the category not of a novel but of an extended plot-outline...a book created not by its own internal growth or logic or thought but by adding a bunch of paragraphs to a plot outline previously submitted to a publishing house in order to reach a certain number of pages. Just because the author gives heroine Anne Murphy a background as a.) having been born with a cleft lip; b.) an unloving mother; c.) a stalker; does not in and of itself give her an interesting character. I loved the previous books but I found this book to be irritating and shallow and unbelievable, and I am not sure I will read future books in the series. (And it is certainly not a legal thriller, potential purchasers should be aware of this.) In terms of recommendations of alternative books, anyone who enjoyed this book will undoubtedly also enjoy the books of Stuart Woods.
Rating: 
Summary: Loads of fun.
Review: What do you do when you see the front-page headlines screaming that you've been murdered? Tell the police it's all a mistake, of course. At first blush, yes. But think this through. Whose body showed up with holes in it, and why do the authorities think that it's you? Besides, who has a motive to see you dead? When you look at all the possibilities, maybe you want to back off of that first impression, dig into the facts around the whole situation before making a hasty, and possibly fatal, decision. That's just where Anne Murphy, a beautiful, young Philadelphia lawyer, finds herself.
The day before the nation's birthday celebration, Anne pulls off a gutsy coup in the courtroom, winning a motion in a highly unconventional way. Heady with victory, she looks around for someone with whom to share her triumph, but since she doesn't have any friends, no one comes to mind. So, despite her aversion to exercise, she forces herself to work out at the gym on her way home. There, she befriends Willa Hansen, a petsitter, and arranges for Willa to take care of Mel, her personable cat, over the Fourth of July weekend. Fortunately, for Anne, she finds an apartment at the shore at the last minute. Now she can escape the bedlam of patriotism on Independence Day in the City of Brotherly Love, and get some work done preparing for the big trial on Tuesday. She spends the evening enduring holiday traffic, arriving late at her quiet retreat.
On her early morning jog the next day, Anne glimpses the horrifying words at the newsstand, "Lawyer Found Murdered." As she reads the subheading, she discovers, to her total bewilderment, that she is the victim. It slowly dawns on her that Willa must have died in her place, and her suspicion is that Kevin, a deranged stalker from her past, must have gotten out of prison early.
Anne realizes early on that she will need help. She turns to three members of the all-women law firm where she works. The rest of the holiday weekend is filled with the capers of these four gorgeous lawyers chasing clues around Philly in a red Mustang convertible. Bennie Rosato, the firm's owner, becomes the voice of reason among her young associates. Curbing their sometimes harebrained schemes, however, proves too much even for her. With Anne falling in love with opposing counsel on her largest case, Bennie has her hands full keeping everyone focused on what's important.
The final plan, however, is Anne's alone. While it works fairly well, all does not go exactly as hoped. Then comes the surprise.
Ms. Scottoline's fans, especially those who have awaited the return of Bennie Rosato & Associates, will find this an easy summer read.
The bottom line is that COURTING TROUBLE, unlikely plot or not, is loads of fun, lots of good girl talk, with a sexy car and a great wrap-up.
--- Reviewed by Kate Ayers
Rating:
Summary: The shoes fit
Review: If Lisa Scottoline's Philadelphia-based, all-women law firm novels were breakfast cereal, they'd have to be Rice Krispies. Because no matter how implausible some of the antics may seem, the plotting and prose just snap, crackle and pop their way off the page. And "Courting Trouble" (2002), Scottoline's 9th such adventure, showcases the author's both snappy and careful work.
Scottoline does a fine job broadening her character base and the range of activities under foot. We don't get too many stories about one lawyer and we don't get too many long-running romances either. It's good craftsman ship accompanying zippy and compelling prose.
So, enter Rosato and Associates's newest lawyer, Anne Murphy. Murphy is smart, gorgeous and young and her law is "dress for the Milan runway in your mind, not the one at your local airport, even though it keeps her in credit card hell. So young is she that the firm's regular "kids" Mary and Judy seem seasoned and boss Bennie Rosato almost middle-aged, but not quite. All the women in Scottoline's series are vibrant and delicious, no matter their age or hair color.
Murphy and her Monolo Blahniks don't fit in and she knows it. But she's battling a stalker from her past and gets in deep. Just as the stylish redhead is about to drown, the "older" women realize that they're as guilty as any male lawyer in any shop - they're not willing to let women in as equals, particularly if they're way better looking and know it.
So the four hatch a plan that, as so many do, relies on Mary DeNunzio's old world Italian parents. It also relies on hair dye and shoes.
Socttoline introduces the "internal memo" device that works splendidly. It's Murphy's signature and she's either sending silent mental memos to herself and others, ("Memo to Bennie: don't buy clothes where you shop for food.) or she's actually announcing them.
As always, the pace is brisk, the characters multi-dimensional though humerous and the plot gets scary, but won't gray your hair.
Memo to potential reader: "Spend your money on Bennie, not Blahnik."
Rating:
Summary: Stalking Her Stalker
Review: I highly recommend that you listen to this performance rather than read the book. The comic character of the work will be hard for you to imagine through reading, but Ms. Rosenblat hits it just right. My only objection to the taping is that there is some problem with annoying background noise during pauses. It sounds like either pages turning or the performer clearing her throat. Those who want law, mystery, women being stalked, murder and other serious matters treated literally in a realistic way, like Law & Order does on television, will hate Courting Trouble. Those who enjoy the Stephanie Plum stories may discover a wonderful new heroine in Anne Murphy. The story itself is just the context for often remarkable, surprising comedy. Anne Murphy is a fairly new associate at the all-woman law firm, Rosato & Associates. Think of her as Lucy Ricardo from I Love Lucy, Anne's favorite show. She's a bright, zany red-head representing a former law school classmate in a sexual harassment case. In the book's opening, she is trying to get some testimony excluded. After sparring unsuccessfully with the judge, she uses an inflammatory (but very funny) tactic to get the judge to rethink his position. No law school teaches this kind of off-the-wall trick, and I'm sure no lawyer I know would do it. But that's what makes it funny, because it shows up in contrast to the stark formality of legal proceedings so well. At that point, I got it. This book is a witty satire of legal practice and the female detective genre. I suspect that many people will miss that point. The reversals of expectations just keep coming. Anne finds out that everyone thinks she has been killed while she is away at the New Jersey shore for the weekend. Coming back, she disguises herself outrageously in clown-like fashion (with an obvious reference to Shakespeare's fools) . . . and listens in while her colleagues speak their regrets about her death (with an obvious reference to Tom Sawyer attending his own funeral). Having left California to escape all thoughts of a convicted stalker who threatened her with death, Anne finds out the stalker has escaped. Rather than playing the victim, she stalker her stalker. The results can be hilarious (including her visits to bar for a tea -- or is it tee? -- dance and a hot sheet motel). It's almost like Blazing Saddles coming to life in a Philly law firm. Some of the reversals that work less well involve her shift from being unable to relate to women to becoming a well-appreciated hugger, adjusting to her birth defect and reacting to her client turning out to be a pawing wanderer. This is a great audio for a long plane trip or a lengthy drive. Keep smiling! After I finished the book, I found myself thinking about why certain subjects are not normally treated with humor. It's probably because the subjects are so repugnant to us, such as child molestation.
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