True Justice

Rating:
Summary: True Fun!
Review: "True Justice" by Robert Tanenbaum, is another fine entry in the fantasy lawyer series featuring the husband and wife team of Butch Karp and Marlene Ciampi.

Butch Karp, the Assistant District Attorney of New York City, is faced with an outbreak of infanticide. His job is to prosecute the wrong doers and bring evil people to justice. Marlene Ciampi his wife takes a case in Delaware, but conversely her job is to defend the mother of a dead baby that is being persecuted by the Wilmington District Attorney. Even their daughter Lucy gets into the act when her friend's family is assassinated by persons unknown.

What makes these stories fun to read are Tanenbaum's characterizations. You know that these people cannot possible exist and as a matter of fact they are almost superhuman. Karp is everyone's ideal DA, tough, fair, and honest. Ciampi is almost superwoman she's smart, aggressive and sexy. Lucy their daughter is a child protegee with languages, street wise and practically a saint.

Sometimes you get the feeling that the story is merely a way for Tanenbaum to present new problems for this gifted family to overcome. But who cares, half the fun is getting there anyway, so close your eyes, suspend reality, sit back and relax. Tanenbaum is a fine writer and his world of super lawyers, Karp and Ciampi will take care of everything...with panache.

I recommend "True Justice", but don't take it too seriously.

Rating:
Summary: A letdown
Review: Don't worry if, like me, you have not read any previous books in this series. The author catches you up on the characters' lives soap-opera-style and the principal players themselves cheerfully acknowledge the unlikelihood of their history. Once you suspend your disbelief, you are in for an entertaining time with some very appealing characters: Butch Karp, the tough, conscientious Chief Assistant District Attorney; wife Marlene Ciampri, an attorney struggling to extricate herself from her violent career as a bodyguard; and teenage daughter Lucy, a spiritually gifted language prodigy. The three become involved in an interlocking set of crimes - two infanticides and the murder of Lucy's friend's parents. The action moves along briskly but the heart of the novel is the characters' grappling with what would consitute "true" justice in each of these tragic cases - and how best to achieve it within an imperfect legal system. The philosophizing is leavened with an ample dose of humor. I'm looking forward to reading other books in this series.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Find!
Review: I consider this book to be a great find. Looking for something to read one day in a discount store, I picked up this book and from the start was hooked on Tanenbaum's style and the Karp and Ciampi storyline. I have ordered several more of the series and can't wait to get into them.

Rating:
Summary: continuing saga of the Karp family
Review: I haven't missed a Tanenbaum book yet and cannot wait for the next one. Marlene, Butch, Lucy, Zik and Zak, Harry-- all of em are my favorite characters. oops--missed Sweety and Tran.I've enjoyed following them from the beginning, and especially like the development of Lucy, as the adventures continue. Wonder when the twins will start solving crimes? It is after I finish a new book that I go back to previous Karp adventures and re-read. My husband thinks re-reading is silly , so please Mr. Tanenbaum, start on a new one soon! An insatiable reader in NWFla

Rating:
Summary: Great listen!
Review: I really liked this book though the mysteries were more or less open and shut, it was how people thought of them, moralized through them. Lucy, the daughter comes off as a bit incredible, in her talents and religious convictions but it's a nice addition. The concept that a teenager is thinking deeply on the Universe was a welcome change. I would definitely keep my eyes open for another book about this family.

Rating:
Summary: A disappointment
Review: I wish I could share everyone's enthusiasm, but to me this wasn't either a mystery or a police procedural: It was a religious panegyric.

The Catholic overtones that have entered the books since Lucy's character has come to the fore completely took over this one, informing every element of the plot and leading to a preposterous conclusion. I'm not saying anything against religion: Just that this wasn't the book I was hoping to read.

I really miss the give-and-take of the characters from Karp's office that made the earlier books so vivid and realistic. Then the series moved away from that milieu to focus on Marlene, who I don't much like, but who at least is interesting, and then moved to Lucy, who I abhor and whose religiosity I find unbearable. Again, I emphasise that this is not a "thing" against religion, but a warning that anyone who wants a good solid mystery is likely to be disappointed, as I was.

My three-star rating is a tribute to the excellence of the writing. Otherwise, it would have been down to one, with great regrets.

Rating:
Summary: Very enjoyable Book!
Review: Mr. Tanenbaum's books are the kind you stay up at night to finish. I for one love it that there is a major character that is a devout Christian (intelligent too). Lucy's faith is very deep and it is interesting to read about as well. I enjoy Mr.Tanenbaum's books and all the characters. I find Marlene somewhat disturbing however.

Rating:
Summary: Better Than Your Typical Grisham
Review: This is the first Tanenbaum novel I've read, and except for the blurb on the back I would not have realised it was one of a series. That I never had the sense I was getting 12 volumes of backstory nor did I need it speaks highly for Tanenbaum's writing skills; whether his long time followers are as blissfully unaware I'm not at all sure.

As to the story itself, Tanenbaum has taken a somewhat unconventional approach. Rather than lots of gunplay, powerful courtroom drama, or devious legal manueverings, we are given decent people struggling with what the role of the law is, and what it should be. The story is largely dialogue and character driven, with little action and only a minor mystery that appears quite late in the book. Mostly Tanenbaum waxes philosophical--an approach that will drive some readers mad, but I thought it was quite fresh and more like real life than any Grisham potboiler. I'm not sure I'd like an entire series with this approach--nor do I know that the author takes it in the other books of the series--but on its own merits, True Justice is definitely worth a read.

Rating:
Summary: Better Than Your Typical Grisham
Review: This is the first Tanenbaum novel I've read, and except for the blurb on the back I would not have realised it was one of a series. That I never had the sense I was getting 12 volumes of backstory nor did I need it speaks highly for Tanenbaum's writing skills; whether his long time followers are as blissfully unaware I'm not at all sure.

As to the story itself, Tanenbaum has taken a somewhat unconventional approach. Rather than lots of gunplay, powerful courtroom drama, or devious legal manueverings, we are given decent people struggling with what the role of the law is, and what it should be. The story is largely dialogue and character driven, with little action and only a minor mystery that appears quite late in the book. Mostly Tanenbaum waxes philosophical--an approach that will drive some readers mad, but I thought it was quite fresh and more like real life than any Grisham potboiler. I'm not sure I'd like an entire series with this approach--nor do I know that the author takes it in the other books of the series--but on its own merits, True Justice is definitely worth a read.

Rating:
Summary: Smart, Intelligent..but kinda boring.
Review: True Justice

I have no doubt that Robert K. Tanebaum is excellent, no...magnificent litigator. And if I was in trouble I would want him fighting for me. This is a man who has thought seriously about his professions. And his books are excellent manuals on the state of our criminal justice system. You pick up one his books and you have a pretty complete discussion on some of the hardest and least understood issues of our time. I would imagine he is an excellent teacher....

I have only read two of his books....listened actually to Chivers (now BBC) unabridged recordings...and my problem with his writing might be exacerbated by the reader, who is not a bad voice for Butch, but has certain problems with characterizations with Lucy and Marlene. (this being said, a lot of male and female narrators have these particular problems, and it would seem that the only one who has really conquered it is the overworked George Guidall.) True Justice, stands out because of the author's experience with the Amy Grossberg case, he represented the mother in a classic case of prosecutorial overkill in the charging of the two young people involved with the death and disposal of their son shortly after his birth. In this book he has an opportunity denied him when the defendants plead out, by stating his case for sanity when looking at these tragic cases of infanticide. This issue has been demagogued to death, a hot button topic which sets shallow social critics mouth a flapping on how rotten kids are today. Tanebaum takes several examples of various neonate deaths, and illustrates that each case has a heartbreaking tragedy behind it, and rather project monsterhood on mothers who kill their children, he paints a picture which is pathetic and without the heart pumping sensation which titilates addicts of talk shows. The result is not a bleeding heart diatribe but look at the politicization of the courts, prosecutions, and the exploitation of the most private of tragedies.

As an advocate, Tanebaum is dead on as his hits his various targets, however as a novelist he has a long way to go. Like most the attorney writers, he gives great speeches but his ear for how normal people talk is...flawed. Each of his characters do great monologues on their various points of view, but sound strangely stilted....witty, dry....but without humor, or awareness of how utterly pompous they sound when they step up to mike and speak their lines.

Tanebaum is a prolific writer with a good mind, and great range on a lot of issues. He is a social critic, an advocate for the law, and has created a very compelling series which through the mouths of his disparate characters is able to state several points of view in a persuasive and compelling manner. He could be a really great novelist if he could stop for moment and attempt to listen to and capture how people actually talk.