The Tenth Justice

Rating:
Summary: It's here! Run to the store!!
Review: The release date for the states is May 12th, but I called our largest book store in Nashville just to check and see if they had it. I got the last copy they had. They got their shipment this morning and they are already sold out by 7:00 pm. They were the only store that already had copies. This book is wonderful! The characters are wonderful, and the plot is stellar. Mr. Weisbach you couldn't have picked a better author to start your imprint with.

Rating:
Summary: Show me the money!
Review: If I could buy stock in Meltzer I would! My buddy in London sent me "The Tenth Justice" and I owe him big time. Incredible dialouge framed around a group of 20-somethings that are smart, innovative and hilarious. I felt like I was reading a transcription of my friends and I sitting around busting on each other. The plot was gripping and the cliff hangers were unexpected yet believable (something you don't often find in a legal thriller). If you combine my favorite TV Show (Seinfeld) and my favorite movie (Pulp Fiction) with a legal spin (Turow) you have "The Tenth Justice"

Rating:
Summary: It's not The Firm...it's better.
Review: I picked this book up when I was in London and missed three days of sight seeing as a result. I am usually not a big fan of legal thrillers, to me they are just "one scene wonders" that I figure out half way through. That is why I was so pleasently suprised by this captivating novel. The dialogue was witty and the plot brilliant. This book is why people read fiction. Look out Grisham, Meltzer is the new king of legal thrillers, and long live the king

Rating:
Summary: Grisham-type excitement but better
Review: By far one of the best books I have ever read. I picked it up in England last week and noticed that it isn't yet available in the states. When it gets here, RUN TO THE BOOK STORE! Meltzer combined a fascinating and fast moving plot with interesting characters and great dialogue. This book was more than a page turner -- it was a chapter turner. In addition to giving me a great plot, it has some great characters. If you are the type who likes legal thrillers, or the type who likes to read brilliant dialogue, or the type who likes to laugh, this book has all of it. Better read it before Hollywood turns it into something else.

Rating:
Summary: Really bad, even for first book.
Review: I live in Northern Virginia, so anybody who lives in DC is amazed by DC authors. They read about the characters going to Union Station and go, "Oh! Oh! Oh my God!!! I've been there!" So about 5 people recommended this book. This book is a mess. I was shocked that so many of my friends have really low standards when it comes to reading. I was hoping that I would learn a lot about the Supreme Court, but I didn't learn anything. This novel (to use the term loosely) is way too long. As other reviewers have said, the dialogue is amateur, just smart aleck comments back and forth. It's got the ol' wacky roommate with the wacky name who says wacky things and does wacky things. It's got the antagonist with the surveillance manpower of the NSA, who in James Bond Villain style, explains every action and motivation before trying to off the main character, Ben. The love story is cold. The most romance occurred between Ben and his roommates, and they're supposed to be straight, but they talk gay, live in Dupont Circle, and cook for each other, I'll let you do the math. Plot twists are not honest to the story and the climax shoots blanks. The book is predictable. Also, Meltzer needs to take his picture off the book. Sometimes my imagination replaces the main character with the picture of the author and while the main character is supposed to be tough and good looking, all I could picture is a very ugly, balding, Jewish man named Meltzer. Ughhhh. NO MORE D.C. AUTHORS!!!!

Rating:
Summary: implausib le
Review: About the only thing plausible in this book is the sense of place. The setting is Washington, DC, where I live, and most of the locations in the book are places the author has obviously been to or researched. The dialogue, however, is implausible, as is the behavior of the characters. These characters are supposed to be smart people, but they all talk, think, and act like kids. Though funny at times, the incessant junior-high-like insults and banter was mostly annoying. And it is just impossible to believe that people would make the decisions that the characters in this book make. For a better thriller involving lawyers, spying, and a young rookie getting caught up in a conspiracy, try Grisham's The Firm.

Rating:
Summary: I thoroughly enjoyed this book on tape
Review: The Tenth Justice is an interesting little morality play set at the Supreme Court. What do you do if you accidentally leak information about a supreme court case and someone uses that inside information to make a fortune? What do you do if they come back and threaten ot expose your slip-up unless you provide more information?

In my opinion. Meltzer's character does the wrong thing but that is what makes the story so interesting.

Meltzer's dialogue works so well with Thomas Gibson's performance that it sounds as if they were in the room copying down the natural flow of the characters' conversations as they were spoken. Truly, they were very fun to listen to.

Rating:
Summary: More Bad than Good
Review: Meltzer frustrates me as an author. This is the 3rd book I've read and each one is plagued by the same problem: the most inane dialogue imaginable. Maybe I'm not hip or urban, definetly not cool, but no one I know talks with exclamation points at the end of every sentence! No one has a dialogue structure that follows the same rigid guideline everytime-- banal joking, someone getting upset, someone bringing out the exclamation points, and someone storming off! Every book of his I read has the most unnatural dialogue! Perhaps this is his curse!

Another problem that plagues his stories is that he can't create a sympathetic character. It's a marvel that anyone helps out our hero in this story, much less risks their lives, because by about page 30 he'll grind on your nerves and you'll hope someone puts duct tape over his mouth.

Why is this frustrating? If he just a bad author with no redeemable qualities, I wouldn't be frustrated. But, I genuinely think he has potential. Underneath all the convulted dialogue-- which I swear reads a little worse than any Saved By the Bell episode--, the predictable(or inexcusable) plot twists-- lye stories that in the hands of a more skilled author might actually be quite entertaining. There's no high art here, but the story itself-- the premise of the novel-- is fairly decent.

****MINOR SPOILERS*****
Unlike other readers, I wasn't trapped on an island with no other book to read, or given it as a gift that created a sense of guilt. I hung on because I wanted to see who was betraying our hero. Sadly, it's never exactly clear. He hints and fusses at it, but to actually name someone would be too much to ask. In the end I guess it's everyone and no one.
****END SPOILERS*****

With a great dialogue coach and an editor with a ton of time on their hands, Meltzer could easily rise to 3 star territory. I think his stories are solid enough, unfortunately his writing isn't.

Rating:
Summary: Really bad, even for first book.
Review: I live in Northern Virginia, so anybody who lives in DC is amazed by DC authors. They read about the characters going to Union Station and go, "Oh! Oh! Oh my God!!! I've been there!" So about 5 people recommended this book. This book is a mess. I was shocked that so many of my friends have really low standards when it comes to reading. I was hoping that I would learn a lot about the Supreme Court, but I didn't learn anything. This novel (to use the term loosely) is way too long. As other reviewers have said, the dialogue is amateur, just smart aleck comments back and forth. It's got the ol' wacky roommate with the wacky name who says wacky things and does wacky things. It's got the antagonist with the surveillance manpower of the NSA, who in James Bond Villain style, explains every action and motivation before trying to off the main character, Ben. The love story is cold. The most romance occurred between Ben and his roommates, and they're supposed to be straight, but they talk gay, live in Dupont Circle, and cook for each other, I`ll let you do the math. Plot twists are not honest to the story and the climax shoots blanks. The book is predictable. Also, Meltzer needs to take his picture off the book. Sometimes my imagination replaces the main character with the picture of the author and while the main character is supposed to be tough and good looking, all I could picture is a very ugly, balding, Jewish man named Meltzer. Ughhhh. NO MORE D.C. AUTHORS!!!!

Rating:
Summary: Good start for a fantastic author
Review: I actually came across this book because I was dating a guy at the time who had a friend who had an advanced copy - they knew I liked to read and sugested the book. I am now an avid Brad Meltzer fan - I go to his book signings when he is in my area and rush out to get his new releases on the day they come out. I have read all of his books and the first is still the best as far as I am concerned.
Plot twists and turns around every corner. This is also a book I buy and give to everyone I know.