Another winner from Joseph Teller who has a lock on fictional legal cynicism as far as I’m concerned.

Jaywalker is still on suspension when is is approached (a term here I use very loosely) by Amanda Drake whose estranged husband, Clarke, has been arrested on murder charges. It seems he got smashed and drove his speeding Audi into a van of Jewish children on their way to some event. The van rolled down the hill, burst into flames, and incinerated everyone inside.

Jaywalker, knowing he mustn't do anything to risk getting his legal license back, signs on as a private investigator to collect all the information he would need for the time when he is reinstated and then can take the case which promises a substantial fee. Suffice it to say that Teller gets his license back and proceeds with the case

Teller does a terrific job with courtroom dialogue and weaving the ins and outs of this case which, in the end, jolts with several surprises. Teller knows the law and through Jaywalker makes several telling comments and provides examples of the problems with the adversarial system.

Very enjoyable light page-turner. On to the next Teller.... ( )

Depraved Indifference by Joseph Teller

If you are lucky you may have just picked this book up off the shelf and started reading it without ever looking at the back cover of the book. And if that were the case then perhaps you read the first chapter and became sucked in like I was. And if you were as shocked and surprised by the first chapter as I was then hopefully you bought this book just to find out just how the heck Jaywalker was going to handle this. Just what “this” is, is a case of DUI with multiple deaths involved. And not just any deaths, but the deaths include eight children all under the age of twelve.

Jaywalker, once known as Harrison J. Walker, now better know by his knick-name, is a lawyer under suspension who was found to have been cutting corners, breaking rules and making judges angry. When Amanda, wife of accused “Audi Assassin” Carter Drake, hunts down Jaywalker, takes him into her bed and then persuades him to take her husbands case, she starts the wheels rolling on what would seem to be a no-win case for Jaywalker. But Jaywalker perseveres. And our author lets us know with his sometimes over-abundant words that in his past life Joseph Keller really was an undercover agent for DEA and he really was a criminal defense attorney.

After the first few chapters I had to wonder just how Mr. Teller was going with this story. After all, if someone pretty much confesses to murder and there is no way to make someone else the suspect or to blame actions on something like equipment failure, then we don’t have a suspense novel. But thankfully Mr. Teller had a few ideas up his lawyerly sleeve and was able to pull off a surprise or three. And my I just say bravo to the very surprising last chapter. I’m still wondering who did it!

All in all this was a satisfying read, with enough suspense thrown in to make up for the slight overkill on the legal talk. I think I will invest some of my book buying cash and purchase the first two novels that Mr. Teller wrote and bring myself up to speed with Jaywalkers activities.

Happy reading! ( )