Rating: 
Summary: Great Plot, Great Writing
Review: This book just picks up speed with every page. The story has hints of traditional legal thrillers, but this novel is hardly that conventional. The writing is as flawless and fun as anything out there, the plot is clever, and the characters are both roguish and charming. This is a great, brilliant, compelling effort. It should win an award, and clearly deserves its number one rank in Virginia.
Rating: 
Summary: Not up to expectations
Review: I read this novel after reading numerous good reviews. I was gravely disappointed in the book. It was our new book club's first choice to read on my suggestion. All three women who read it were very disappointed. The situation was not of interest to women and I believe the plot was sexist. None of us could be "hooked" into the story and the others skipped to the end just to find out the finality. It was not worth the time to read it. Poor reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Trailer Trash With Class
Review: Meet Evers Wheeling, his brother Pascal and their two other friends who like to hang out for extended periods of time in Pascal's modest trailer home, the one with the boarded up window. Hold this book at arm's length when you read it as the alcohol fumes emanating from its pages are sure to induce a stage of virtual intoxication. The good life is truly being doped and drugged throughout the day. Now please don't get the wrong idea about all of this. Author Clark loves these guys. He can't bear to make them ordinary rednecks. No indeed. One is a judge, and one a doctor -an emergency room physician no less- and they all seem to be college graduates, one from Princeton, one from William and Mary. They speak in an ornate language that would impress an Oxford don. They are generally very polite folks, who would not think of making a pass at the beautiful lady who decides to stay overnight at the trailer home. They have a code of honor that places loyalty above honesty. Pascal, the philosophical one who drinks for a living, states that while you cannot remain a child, you can sure spend your life perpetually immature.What else goes on besides the serious drinking? Well, the guys get involved in helping an attractive woman retrieve some stolen money, and a strange murder infringes on their imbibing rituals. Judge Wheeling also decides to punish his wife for a marital no-no by chaining her naked to the freeway exit sign at Climax, North Carolina. The judge also has some strange mental lapses that suggest some sort of organic brain syndrome. And what about that yellowed letter with the strange stamps? The dialogue in this novel is great fun, although its baroque quality varies from time to time. The conversations between judge Wheeling and his black girlfriend are particularly amusing. This book is about a couple of ne'er-do-well brothers who ultimately seem on the road to mediocre-do-well. It's different; it's fun.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Fiction
Review: This book is funny, intriguing and clever. The writing is as good as I've ever read, and the ending is perfect. Just a great book all the way around. I was disappointed to discover this is Mr. Clark's only book. I hope he'll have another one out soon.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious and gripping
Review: First let me say in response to an earlier customer review, that I am NOT a friend of the author. My 5 star review is given simply because I thought this a fabulous, fresh and funny book. It had me laughing aloud. It's a legal thriller like no other (thank god), a comic whirl as good as Michael Malone's Handling Sin (as Penzler noted), thoroughly original - also rude, apt, smart and unexpected. Evers is a real character, but it's his brother Pascal who stands out, I wish he was a friend of mine (though I'd keep him away from wives).
Rating:
Summary: As good as the buzz
Review: I purchased this book because a friend of mine told me about it. (She had seen it in a Book-of-the-Month Club magazine--nominated for their fiction award.) I discovered when I checked it out on Amazon that it had received a starred review from Publisher's Weekly and Kirkus. Then I read an excellent review in my local paper (Baltimore Sun), and saw a rave review in The NY Times. After I bought the book, I also saw that Newsweek's reviewer liked it. The bottom line: This novel had good word of mouth, a great local review, and excellent national reviews from the New York Times and Publisher's Weekly. So I bought it and loved it. This is a brilliant, funny book, part mystery, part legal thriller, part spiritual trip. It's as good as the buzz. While I realize this is not a chat room. I do take issue with one of the reviews that appears on this page, suggesting that all the good reviews come from Mr. Clark's friends. This wouldn't be possible, would it? I do not know Martin Clark, but I did feel that I should write and defend this book. It's a fine, excellent read, and I doubt that the author's remarkable success has come because he has friends at the Times and Newsweek and Publisher's Weekly, etc. So my name is Holly Santos, I'm ordering another one for a friend, and this one gets five stars.
Rating: 
Summary: what?
Review: this novel is NOT good. I think the people on here (most of them choosing the "name" "Customer" are freinds of the author or something. More southern ridiculousness. Eccentricity has become just another convention, another formula. This author has read Confederacy of Dunces too many times, and it shows. Sorry.
Rating:
Summary: Original, full of surprises
Review: A great first novel from Judge Clark, totally original and impossible to classify. How did he make such outrageous characters and events seem so real? I recommend it highly.
Rating:
Summary: The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living
Review: Judge Martin Clark's book, The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living is a wonderful trip into both the life and times of a North Carolina Judge who chooses to walk on the wild side. Not since Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas have I enjoyed a book more. This is great stuff and I hope the Judge gives us more (assuming the Code of Judicial Conduct so allows).
Rating:
Summary: The best book I've read in years
Review: I picked this book up a few days ago after a friend recommended it. Oddly enough, I really don't consider it a "Southern" novel. It's a novel with a great story, universal themes and beautiful, stylish writing that happens to be set partly in North Carolina. In fact, the critical scenes take place in Utah. I loved the twist at the end, and I loved the strong women in the story. This one has it all; it's far bigger than a regional tale. Buy it today.
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