I liked this one better than the first. ( )

This is not my usual genre but I really enjoyed the author's writing style. My spouse found some of the twists and turns rather predictable but I enjoyed them. ( )

Also published as Veritas

2nd in the Victor Carl, Philadelphia criminal defense lawyer, series.

Connection with the Philadelhia mob may have gotten Victor Carl out of debt and even saved his life, but the price has been high--a steady stream of small-time hoodlums whose fees are paid by the mob. Carl has lost none of his thirst for money, big money, so when a rich Main Line heiress, Caroline Shaw, drops into his lap, so to speak, all he can see is the potential millions to be gained from a 30% contingency fee--if he can get her to sign the agreement. But collection will take him to strange place--the seemingly cursed house, Veritas, of the rich family and Belize--put him smack in the middle of a war for control of the city’s mob.

I had a hard time getting into this actually very good story because initially it seemed more like a Gothic tale than an interesting variant on the police procedural genre, and I really, really don’t like Gothic. Fortunately, I stuck with the book, and it turned out, once the back story was set up, to be a faced-paced thriller as well. Carl is not terribly complex nor very likable, but one of his sidekicks, private detective Morris Kaputsin, an older Russian Orthodox Jew, is most certainly the best character in the book.

Good plot, very good writing, well-written denouément--an enjoyable read, even though not as good as Lashner’s debut in the series, Hostile Witness. Recommended. ( )

This is the second of William Lashner's books featuring Victor Carl, a flawed loser of a lawyer that we somehow still root for. This and the previous (Hostile Witness) are the best, although I stopped reading after four because Victor Carl became less flawed and thereby less interesting. I think it's in Veritas that there's a brilliantly funny scene featuring mobsters riding a limo in a funeral procession...if I tell you more I might spoil the humor. Read this and Hostile Witness--both very well written and great reads. (I don't read great literature; I read for entertainment but I can't stand a poorly written book--all the books I add here are well written.) ( )

Group G1