Offer of Proof: A Novel - Hardcover

Heilbrun, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060538120 ISBN 13: 9780060538125

Publisher: William Morrow, 2003

Synopsis

A beautiful businesswoman is robbedand murdered. With her last breath, she identifies her assailant. Or does she?Damon Tucker, a young kid from Harlem, is quickly charged with the murder. He maintains his innocence from the beginning despite some incredibly damning evidence. Soon the only person standing between Damon and a possible death sentence is his public defender, Arch Gold, a tough courtroom veteran who knows every move in the game of criminal justice in New York City. But in this case Gold quickly discovers that nothing is what it seems and the rules of evidence don't always apply. This may be a case he can't win.

Through Gold's eyes, we meet an unforgettable cast of characters on both sides of the law: a judge who smiles at everyone but favors the death penalty; an old bookie who's trying to keep the government from seizing his IRAs; a young stripper with a big mouth; and a stick-up artist who wants a day job. Each has a surprising role to play as Gold faces the biggest challenge of his career, risking his reputation -- and his life -- to find the truth.

With more than a decade of experience as a public defender, Robert Heilbrun is intimately familiar with the workings of the criminal justice system, inside and outside the courtroom. In Offer of Proof, Heilbrun puts his legal expertise to use in this stunning and beautifully written thriller with a shocking twist.

About this title

About the Author

Robert Heilbrun has been an attorney since 1985. He lives with his family in New York City, where he is a staff attorney with The Legal Aid Society.

Reviews

Adult/High School--With the opening paragraph, court-appointed attorney Arch Gold draws readers quickly and inexorably into the story of a young black man taken into custody in Manhattan. Damon Tucker is an 18-year-old City College student and video-store clerk charged with the murder of a white woman in what appears to be a street robbery gone bad. It's clear to readers that the teen is innocent, but he is his own worst enemy, unable to control his anger and unwilling to follow his attorney's advice. His case becomes a death penalty cause célèbre and, as it wends its way through the courts, Heilbrun sheds light at each turn. Legal precedents, city politics, and ethical issues, as well as the personalities and ambitions of police, jurors, attorneys, and judges, all combine to determine Damon's fate. Gold, who is the son of a bookie and now a "legit" public defender, stands with one foot on each side of the law; when he feels it's necessary, he can step over it. Here, the novel takes on the aspect of a more conventional mystery, as Gold fights to expose the real killer. He has the help of a number of colorful characters, including grateful ex-clients and an elderly friend of his father. This well-written tale is fast moving, compelling, and thought-provoking, and readers will be left hoping that the noir-voiced Arch Gold will return to relate more of his cases in future novels.--Christine C. Menefee, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

It's not surprising that Yale-educated, New York-based, legal-aid lawyer/author Heilbrun gets the details right in this thriller featuring Ivy League educated, New York legal-aid public defender Arch Gold. What's refreshing in a field crowded with John Grisham imitators is that Heilbrun also turns in an intriguing, fast-paced, well-written courtroom mystery with an original lead character. Ten years ago, Arch Gold gave up his job as a high-powered business attorney (and also gave up his high-powered business attorney wife) to settle into the life of a poorly paid, hard-working, sometimes lonely but professionally satisfied public defender. When he draws the media-hot case of Damon Tucker, a kid from Harlem accused of murdering beautiful businesswoman Charlotte King, he finds himself defending not only a client he thinks is innocent, but also arguing the first death penalty case in New York in 50 years. Arch, at Damon's insistence, looks into the dead woman's background to see if her murder might be more than the simple mugging-gone-bad that prosecutors and the police claim. Arch finds that Charlotte was sleeping with her boss, James L. Yates, head of Yates Associates, the largest PI firm in the world. Remembering his bookie father's words of advice, "sometimes you have to break the rules to do the right thing," he commits a couple of felonies to get the goods on sleazebag Yates. When all else fails, Arch rallies an oddball contingent of former clients-a stripper, a stick-up man and a bookie-to ensure that justice prevails, leaving readers satisfied and eager for another outing.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Experience counts, especially when it comes to the courtroom. Like John Mortimer, Scott Turow, and John Grisham, Heilbrun, an attorney since 1985 and a New York City public defender, brings irreplaceable experience--actual hours logged as an attorney--to his brilliantly crafted debut novel. (Genes count, too; Heilbrun is the son of Carolyn Heilbrun, who writes the Kate Fansler series as Amanda Cross.) Heilbrun's hero, Arch Gold, is also an NYC public defender. His character has some heft behind it, too, in the form of an intriguing disconnect in his professional life. Gold, son of a bookie, graduate of Yale and Harvard, left the high-paying corporate-firm track after one year to pursue the pure grit of defending down-and-outers with no access to an attorney. From the first sentence, "Say your life breaks down . . .," Heilbrun draws the reader into his world, filling it with hard-won details--e.g., what it's like to ride in the attorneys' bus to Rikers Island, the world's largest penal colony, or what it's like to be left in lock-up overnight. He captures the desperation of his clients, especially that of the young black man at the center of the novel, arrested at the scene of the murder of a wealthy woman, who identified him as she lay dying on the sidewalk. Taken with the young man's plight, Gold crosses the line into investigation, pursuing the possibility that this "one-witness ID" (with a dead witness) results from cops trying to make a bad arrest stick. A guided tour through the criminal courts, with nail-biting courtroom scenes and a sock-o ending. Terrific. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060538120
• ISBN 13: 9780060538125
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304