Brain Storm: A Novel - Softcover

Dooling, Richard

3.29

189 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312203993 ISBN 13: 9780312203993

Publisher: Picador, 1999

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Joe Watson is an associate in a prestigious St. Louis law firm when a notorious district court judge assigns him a politically explosive pro bono case--he must defend a bigoted white man accused of killing a deaf black man. Watson's decision to represent his irreputable client in court, rather than wriggle out of the case, outrages his partners and imperils his marriage. Lacking any prior trial experience, Watson depends on Rachel Palmquist, a sexy neuroscientist, and Myrna Schweich, a brash criminal defense attorney, to uncover the truth about the murder.

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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

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