The Arraignment - Hardcover

Martini, Steve

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0399148787 ISBN 13: 9780399148781

Publisher: Putnam Adult, 2003

Synopsis

"Lean, speedy and packing a wallop of a plot twist" was Publishers Weekly's verdict of Steve Martini's The Jury. Now Martini crafts yet another legal nail-biter featuring perennial favorite attorney Paul Madriani.

After a lawyer friend is killed along with his client in a hail of gunfire outside the federal courthouse in San Diego, Madriani takes on another client who he believes is involved at the edges of the double murder. He takes the case not to defend the man, but to find out who killed his friend and why. Madriani is tortured by questions of conflict, his duty to a client who may have killed his friend, and the need to know the truth, wondering whether he himself had been marked for death only to have a friend die in his place. Soon he is drawn into a vortex of crime that spans the Americas.

As he searches for the killer, Madriani rides the crest of a dangerous wave of international drug deals and people who murder for money. Suddenly he realizes it is not heroin or cocaine that resulted in the murder of his friend, but a priceless piece of pre-Columbian art-something so dazzling in the information it holds as to be one of the treasures of the ages.

In a quest that takes Madriani from California to Mexico and the Guatemalan border, he discovers that while the motive to kill may be driven by distant, exotic, and ancient artifacts, the killer, like a serpent, lies much closer at hand.

About this title

Review

When Paul Madriani's old friend, flamboyant criminal-defense lawyer Nick Rush, is gunned down on the streets of San Diego along with a client, Madriani sets out to find the killer. He follows the trail through shady real-estate dealings, cross-border smuggling, political corruption, and a nasty fight between Rush's ex and his young trophy wife over a hefty life-insurance policy. Eventually the case leads Madriani to the Yucatan Peninsula near Cancún, where the last third of the book takes place--a dandy locale for skullduggery, even if it does make you suspect that the author thought up the plot while vacationing there.

The Arraignment is marred by some sloppy, foggy-headed writing ("The neighborhood exudes the kind of aura picked up by a sixth sense that lingers and lifts the hair on the back of my neck"), and the plot, after its initial bang, sags for a while before it gets moving again. However, the sheer vigor of Martini's prose, his densely inventive plotting, and his sharply drawn characters carry you happily, tensely along. The book's action scenes--including a hand-to-hand fight in a shabby apartment and an unforgettable poolside shooting at a Cancún resort--are told in fresh, vivid prose that unfolds with hypnotic clarity. And the denouement is great fun, although the complex plot takes a lot of explaining at the end. Martini's not perfect, but he's still one of the best legal/adventure thriller writers going. --Nicholas H. Allison

About the Author

Steve Martini is the author of numerous New York Times bestsellers.

About this edition

• Publisher: Putnam Adult
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0399148787
• ISBN 13: 9780399148781
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416