Rating: 
Summary: A Good Work of Fiction
Review: This was the first time I read Diehl,s work. I thought it was suspenseful and it kept my interest. The author left a lot of room for a sequel. It is worth the time.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Work of Fiction
Review: This was the first time I read Diehl,s work. I thought it was suspenseful and it kept my interest. The author left a lot of room for a sequel. It is worth the time.
Rating: 
Summary: A more vivid description of a garbage dump doesn't exist.
Review: When a young mother is slaughtered in southern Illinois, Martin Vail's investigator recognizes the combination of letters on the back of her head. These same letters soon appear on the corpses of a delivery man and an altar boy--the mark of Aaron Stampler. But Stampler has been in an institution for the criminally insane for ten years. Are these copycat murders? Is Stampler loose? Vail and his team must stop the killings, and this time they mean to finish the job.
While Vail's team struggles with the problem, the reader is treated to plot twists and some piercing prose. Like: "Fog swirled around powerful spotlights in the darkest hours before dawn. Perched atop tall steel poles, they cast harsh beams out across a rancid, steaming wasteland, etching in shadow and light the buttes, knolls, and slopes of trash and refuse, of abandoned plastic bottles, Styrofoam dishes, cardboard fast-food wrappers, old newspapers, abandoned clothing, and maggot-ridden mounds of uneaten food. Like fetid foothills pointing toward the glittering skyscrapers miles away, the city's garbage formed a stunted mountain range of waste." And there's more. Believe me, a more vivid, more literary description of a garbage dump doesn't exist anywhere in the annals of literature. That's just a tiny sample of Diehl's wordsmith powers.William Diehl honed his craft at the old Atlanta magazine as a writer and a photographer. On his 50th birthday he realized he wanted to write fiction so he turned his back on his old life and wrote a novel. It hit the bestseller list. So did his second. And his third. By the time he got around to writing his Martin Vail trilogy (of which SHOW OF EVIL is the second), he had hit his stride as a best selling, top-drawer author. If you miss William Diehl's books, you've missed some of the most powerful writing around.
Rating:
Summary: Better Than Primal Fear! And That Was Good!!!
Review: William Diehl's follow up to Primal Fear, Show of Evil is even better than the first. Diehl has worked much harder at providing background, tying strings of information together, explaining strategy and showing Martin Vail as a more seasoned, less egotistical, lawyer than he was in the the story set ten years earlier. Interesting commentary on the justice system throughout and very good discussion on the "theatre of the courtroom" as one of the valuable sidelights. Jane Veneable, Abel Stenner and a few of the characters remain from Primal Fear -- foremost among them, the frightening Aaron Stampler aka/aka... Great book! Diehl should continue using Martin Vail and Jane Veneable as ongoing characters.
Rating: 
Summary: Too crammed, too much, not enough
Review: William Diehl's previous book, Primal Fear, about Adam Stampler was mind-tingling and jaw-dropping. This one sought to accomplish too much. Why does the book devote so much time to Jane Venerable's case about the women, her boss, and her daughter? Why not stick to the real source of villainy, Adam Stampler? The book is too crammed; Diehl should have taken a few of the mini-mysteries and saved them for another novel in order to give them all due justice. Although a masterful writer that shocks you on every page, his Show of Evil is not enough like Primal Fear to warrant a good review.
Rating:
Summary: Dissapointing
Review: William Diehl's sequel to Primal Fear made dissapointing reading. There seem to be too many charaters in "Show of Evil" .The romance of Vail's associates is mundane and does not interest. Even the affair between Vail and her bete noire - Jane Veneble seems out of place for someone who has raed and enjoyed "Primal Fear". There are at least two sub plots the presence of which is unjustified. The sub plots divert the attention of the reader and the only purpose they serve is to increase the number of pages in the book. Perhaps the only reason book is readable is because of the characterization of Aaron Stampler . If he was an innocent boy charged with murder in "Primal Fear", he is evil personified in this one. I hope the sequel to this one is much better .
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