This is a fulfilling (you can't help getting behind the MC and his case) and interesting book, but the details often didn't seem realistic. I will definitely check out more from this author, and I do recommend this book for someone wanting a good guy/little guy wins type of read. ( )

This is my first book by Victor Methos and it wouldn't be my last. I'm hungry for more legal thriller.
It was a page turner, the characters are likable and they came to life. The plot moves fast and drew you in from the beginning to the end. I tear up here and there and smiled at the end. Loved it.

I borrowed this book through Prime membership. ( )

The Neophyte Fantasy Lawyer
Review of the Brilliance Audio audiobook edition (2014)

Victor Methos is extremely prolific with 40 novels to his credit in the space of 10-15 years. That level of productivity usually smells either of formulaic writing or a ghostwriter factory or perhaps both.

Formula seems to be the likely métier. The plucky lawyer, saddled with an impossible case and client, against all odds, pulls off a win versus an unlikeable prosecutor and/or judge and/or justice system. That was certainly the case in my only previous Methos, A Gambler's Jury (2018) and is again in The Neon Lawyer (2014). This latter is also Methos' most popular novel to date in his Library Thing rankings.

The Neon Lawyer is Theodore Brigham, who is hired straight out of law school by what seems to be a very shady mob-affiliated firm (sound like any other book that you know?) that advertises with a neon sign. Of course, the boss is actually a soft-touch, there is faithful sidekick with a Scots accent and a beautiful woman lawyer who only works there so she can run triathlons in her spare time. Of course our plucky lawyer is handed an impossible murder defense as his first major case ever. Of course the prosecutor is cold-blooded and unlikeable etc. etc.

Still it was entertaining and the voice performance in the audiobook of all voices by Nick Podehl was well done. It is points off for introducing subplots that are completely dropped and ignored by the end. Minor the break-in and the theft of the sneakers, the murder at the firm, etc.. Maybe those are followed up in the sequel Mercy (2016), but it still seemed like sloppy work to leave them hanging. ( )

Brigham’s new client is Amanda Pierce, a lost, exhausted woman who gunned down the man who tortured and killed her six-year-old daughter. A jury may prove sympathetic to her unbearable pain, but the law is no fan of vigilante justice—and neither is Vince Dale, the slick and powerful prosecutor who’s never lost a murder case. There’s no question that Amanda pulled the trigger—she did it in front of five witnesses. ( )

[The Neon Lawyer] is the story of Brigham Theodor, a new lawyer who is hard up for cash and takes a job at a "flea-bag" law office right across the street from a bail bondsman. Most of the book is about his defense of a young mother in a capital case. Since this was a free Kindle read, I was pleasantly surprised! ( )