DEADBOLT

Rating:
Summary: Jay Brandon's worst -- PASS
Review: An attorney (Grey Stanton)and his wife are stalked by a previous client (Simon Hocksley) who believes Grey stole the money he hid after robbing a local store and being sent to prision. At times, the book is rather suspenseful. At other times, you know exactly what Brandon is going to do with a certain character or situation, which does take the suspense out of a "suspense" novel. Still, it's an interesting read with a twist at the end that I suspected was coming, but in a different way.

Rating:
Summary: Not Suspenseful Enough
Review: An attorney (Grey Stanton)and his wife are stalked by a previous client (Simon Hocksley) who believes Grey stole the money he hid after robbing a local store and being sent to prision. At times, the book is rather suspenseful. At other times, you know exactly what Brandon is going to do with a certain character or situation, which does take the suspense out of a "suspense" novel. Still, it's an interesting read with a twist at the end that I suspected was coming, but in a different way.

Rating:
Summary: Jay Brandon's worst -- PASS
Review: Improbable. Here's a story about a lawyer, Grey, who's family is being threatened and stalked
by a former client, Simon, just released from prison who thinks Grey stole his stash of stolen money. Simon trespasses
on Grey's property (& INTO Grey's house), carries a gun, verbally threatens him, his wife and barely 2 year old daughter,
beats Grey half to death in a local restaurant and what does Grey do? Nothing. Grey tells everyone including the local
Sheriff, he doesn't want to violate the poor guys parole and get him sent back to prison! Can you believe that!!! Give me
a break. What man is going to let another do such a thing to his family? I stopped reading after the beating in a local
restaurant where no one lifted a finger (including Grey himself) to stop the beating. Not even Grey's wife. Unreal.

Rating:
Summary: "Dead Loss" more like it
Review: Pedestrian-even boring--thriller(allegedly)from Texan attorney Brandon who went on to write some capable and lively books.Its protagonist is Texas lawyer "Grey Stanton"who lives with wife "Judith"and baby daughter "Katy".He is taking a sabbatical to write a history of the Jury System and is distracted by a visit from an attractive young woman named "Marcie"calaiming to be a law student researching an old case of his-an unsuccessful defence of a low life named "Simon Hocksley"on an armed robbery charge.The visits grow in frequency and include a romp in the swimming pool
Marcie is not what she claims being an intimate of the now freed Hocksley and his crippled brother Waylon 'The money has disappeared and Hocksley is convinced Stanton knows where it is .Cue harrassment and intimidation leading to a frankly ludicrous and misjudged climax at the Stanton household

The villain is a genuinely chilling creation and there is a good piece of characterization with the well meaning but weak sheriff who was bullied by Hocksley in their younger days.The amounts of money involved are low and I wonder if the author is not making an oblique point about poverty and low expectations among certain of the criminal class in Southern society

It starts out as a plod and ends as ludicrous.Go to Brandon's better later work instead