Brain Storm - Softcover

Dooling R

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099274833 ISBN 13: 9780099274834

Publisher: Vintage, 1999

Synopsis

There's been a murder, a "hate crime", and the fearsome Judge Stang has assigned the case to Joe Watson. Joe has been to court exactly once - to be sworn in as a lawyer - and Judge Stang's decisions are never revoked.

About this title

Review

It's 2002, and Joe Watson, who came straight out of Harvard Law to a job doing online research at one of St. Louis's top law firms, has never spent a day in court. Now he's been appointed to defend a sleazeball accused of killing a deaf African American, which violates not one but two tough new Federal hate-crime statutes. At their first prison meeting, this Client from Hell not only demands an extra blanket and two-ply toilet paper, but also that Watson get him permission to have a racist tattoo removed before it gets him killed. "There are a lot of Afro-Americans of color in here," he tells Watson. "I don't mean anything by that. Some of my best friends are friends of people who have talked to friends of Afro-Americans. You maybe saw on the news where a lot of men of colored end up in here because they are discriminated against or whatever..." Richard Dooling's combination legal/medical thriller and deadly satire of political correctness is a pure delight, as Watson has to juggle everything from a sexy scientist doing brain research who seems bent on destroying his marriage to a growing conviction that maybe the murder victim died just because he was a bad guy. Other examples of Dooling's artfully hilarious fiction available in paperback are Critical Care and White Man's Grave. --Dick Adler

From the Publisher

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR

"Brilliant...A superior tale, a thinking man's John Grisham thriller." --Richard Bernstein, The New York Times

"Hilarious...subtle, entertaining...a serious novel of ideas." --George F. Will, The Washington Post

"Exuberant...deeply pleasurable....Here is a whodunit that achieves a comic fugue-state mastery of the language of our sexually charged, violent, technocratic society." --Colin Harrison, The New York Times Book Review

"[A] beautifully crafted legal thriller...Brain Storm establishes Dooling as one of the more skilled craftsmen working in this genre." --Keith Schneider, Detroit Free Press

"Fast-paced and engaging...If you've tired of Grisham and Turow, try this instead." -- Greg Burkman, The Seattle Times

"Richard Dooling has done it again. With Brain Storm he has written a wacky, offbeat, zany, and wildly funny novel...Dooling writes superbly." --Harry Levins, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Dazzling...[Dooling's] satirical wit rules every page." --Holly Hildebrand, Houston Chronicle

Edition details

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0099274833
• ISBN 13: 9780099274834
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 401