Rating: 
Summary: Not the best one
Review: Don't you hate mystery books when about 100 pages from the end you figure out whodunit? That's exactly how it is with Steve Martini's "The Arraignment". This isn't a legal thriller, but rather a investigative Hardy Boys tale with many, many twists in the tale and generally, some weird, weird stuff popping up that, while making sense, requires the complete suspension of disbelief. Martini an anvil-dropping author, which can slowly make you go crazy. He's so fond of writing something and then telling the reader what it means. For example, Martini will write an exchange very similar to the following: "It is raining," Harry tells me. He's talking about the weather. Read 300 pages of that and the reader will feel condescended to. Tto make his thrillers more literary in value, he adds tons and tons of metaphors and similes that distract from his first person/present tense perspective. Add on top of that, in this installment, Paul Madriani is so self-righteous, intelligent, and smug that he becomes absolutely insufferable. And oh yes, while Paul is traipsing around the jungles of Mexico, daughter Sarah is a complete afterthought, except for one misplaced paragraph towards the end. It's never a good sign when the reader is rooting for the hero of the novel to be dropped off the edge of a Mayan pyramid. I've enjoyed Martini's books in the past, so this was quite the disappointment. "Compelling Evidence" and "Undue Influence" remain the most tightly plotted and well-paced of his novels.
Rating: 
Summary: Why one reads a mystery
Review: Easily the best Steve has done so far. Great lines, just doesn't read, but makes a motion picture in your head. Few authors have the ability to make "living words", Martini is in that small number.
Rating:
Summary: Legal thriller that misses the mark
Review: Heard the taped version of THE ARRAIGNMENT, a legal thriller
by Steve Martini . . . it again features a recurring character (defense
attorney Paul Madriani), yet this time there's more adventure
than courtroom drama--leaving me disappointed . . . also,
the plot was overly convoluted . . . it starts off with the murder
of a friend on a crowded city street and winds up on a quest
from California to the jungles of Mexico . . . the only saving
grace for me was in the fact that Joe Mantegna's reading was
excellent.
Rating: 
Summary: Simply not worthy of reading....
Review: I am a Steve Martini fan...but this book well was less to be desired...the charater development was lacking, the story did not grasp the reader/or listener (for audio book)...I did not find the characters interesting and the plot was well complicated sometimes for I think the sake of being complicated...as it made no believable sense and there was nothing there...it was almost as if Martini had a ghost writer author this title...could not believe it was the same man whose others books I love ...a dissapointment...I'd advise you to read an older novel...
Rating: 
Summary: gripping yet confusing
Review: I enjoyed most of the book, but I was very confused by the ending.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Martini's Best But Not Altogether Bad
Review: I find that Steve Martini usually writes easy to follow plots with likable but uncomplicated characters. He over-steps a bit in this novel, The Arraignment. The book is full of characters which we never get to know completely, unfinished story lines, and a convoluted plot that needs to be explained in the final chapter. I lumbered through it only because I thought it had to get better. By the end, still confused, I had to read the epilogue if only to find out how all the stories and characters fit together. The antagonist is obvious from the beginning but even at the end his motives aren't exactly clear.
Rating:
Summary: Not Bad, But ....
Review: I had high expectations for this book. I have enjoyed others by this author. However, I had to force myself to keep plodding through a cast of unsympathetic characters, little emotional depth, and an ending I guessed early in the book. I kept reading thinking it must get better. There were a few intriging chapters, but only a few.The ending was not satisfying, there were many unresolved, disjointed story lines. I still give it three stars because Martini is a good author, this is just average work when compared with his other novels.
Rating:
Summary: Steve Martini not at his best
Review: I have enjoyed all of Steve Martini's novels. I would rate this one as very average. The first quarter of the book is compelling. However, it quickly gets bogged down in insurance payments, that neither wife is actually entitled to. This is light reading at best. If you put down this novel you may not pick it up again for a long time.
Rating:
Summary: Not that great
Review: I picked up this paperback in the airport while my flight was delayed and had high hopes for it. Like most have already said, the first half of the book looked good, but fell apart at the end. This was the first book I have read by Mr. Martini and may be the last. If you like this sort of book, go for David Baldacci instead.
Rating:
Summary: A Paul Madriani fan
Review: I was disappointed by The Arraignment. In all the previous stories in the Paul Madriani series, plots are advanced and suspense is built through nicely crafted testimony and cross-examination in the courtroom. No such courtroom scenes are to be found in The Arraignment. Instead, author Steve Martini tells a more visual story, with action sequences that he seems to have written with visions of a movie deal dancing through his head - knife fights, gun battles, and even a James Bondish scene in which two men on an ultralight plane spray a hotel pool deck with bullets while Madriani runs and dives and bloodies himself eluding the gunfire (rather than simply taking refuge inside the hotel). The book ends with a lengthy epilogue that is needed to explain the convoluted actions and motivations that lie behind this tortured tale. If there's another book in this series, Martini would do well to return Madriani to the place he performs best, in the courtroom.
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