Face Value (Attorney Rachel Gold Mysteries, 9) - Hardcover

Michael A. Kahn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1464202788 ISBN 13: 9781464202780

Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press, 2014

Synopsis

"Rachel's fans will enjoy her latest case, which highlights the consequences of greed as well as the abilities of the disabled." ―Booklist

As St. Louis attorney Rachel Gold knows firsthand, the demands of the profession can take a toll on young lawyers. Some turn to drugs, some give up the job and occasionally one gives up altogether. According to the medical examiner, Sari Bashir belongs in the latter category. After she fell from the eighth floor of the downtown garage, the police rule her death a suicide and move on.

However, Stanley Plotkin, the law firm's eccentric mailroom clerk, is sure that Sari was murdered. Stanley, a genius afflicted with Asperger's Syndrome, cannot read emotions from other's facial expressions. To compensate, he studies the voluminous facial action coding system to help him navigate social situations. His mastery of that system has convinced him that Sari was not suicidal. Armed with evidence that only he can see, he turns to Rachel for help. While Sari was her friend, she's reluctant to investigate before an impassioned plea from Sari's grieving father convinces her. With the help of some unlikely allies, Rachel begins uncovering a vast criminal enterprise rife with collateral damage―and Sari's death is only the beginning...

About this title

About the Author

Michael Kahn is a trial lawyer by day and an author at night. He wrote his first novel, Grave Designs, on a challenge from his wife Margi, who got tired of listening to the same answer whenever she asked him about a book he was reading. "Not bad," he would say, "but I could write a better book than that." "Then write one," she finally said, "or please shut up." So he shut up-no easy task for an attorney-and then he wrote one.

Kahn is the award-winning author of: seven Rachel Gold novels; an eighth novel, The Mourning Sexton, under the pen name Michael Baron; and several short stories.

In addition to his day job as a lawyer, he is an adjunct professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, where he teaches a class on censorship and free expression. Married to his high school sweetheart, he is the father of five and the grandfather of, so far, four.

Review

"Interesting and quirky characters. Michael Kahn is a wordsmith with some great turns of phrase, humorous descriptions and catchy dialogue. A lawyer who knows the ins and outs of the law, and the skinny on how it's done. Kahn shows the inside seam on the underbelly of real estate development, deceitful developers and their ravenous lawyers. The Flinch Factor is a great read. Pick it up, but only if you can afford to lose a night's sleep, because you won't be able to put it down."--Steve Martini on "The Flinch Factor"

"The Flinch Factor is another welcome addition to the wonderful Rachel Gold series, a clever engrossing legal thriller punctuated by sharp humor and many unexpected developments."--Scott Turow on" The Flinch Factor"

"Both tough-minded and kind, Rachel Gold struggles with two difficult cases in Kahn's enjoyable eighth mystery featuring the St. Louis attorney (after 2002's Trophy Widow). First of all, Rachel is representing residents of a comfortable middle-class neighborhood in their hopeless fight to keep a ruthless real-estate developer from bulldozing their homes to build a gated community. Second, she agrees to help the grieving sister of Nick Moran, a contractor she knew whose death the police have written off as a drug overdose. A trial lawyer himself, Kahn handles the legal details briskly. Even better, as the investigations begin to overlap, Rachel's tense skirmishes with antagonists are balanced with warm interactions with her family and friends--and zany encounters with notoriously eccentric judge Howard Flinch. Rachel may cite Raymond Chandler, but this relaxed, cheerful novel has few traces of noir."--Publishers Weekly review for The Flinch Factor

"Legal mystery aficionados will be pleased to see St. Louis attorney Rachel Gold back again after a long absence. This is the eighth outing (after Trophy Widow)."--Library Journal review for "The Flinch Factor"

""Interesting and quirky characters. Michael Kahn is a wordsmith with some great turns of phrase, humorous descriptions and catchy dialogue. A lawyer who knows the ins and outs of the law, and the skinny on how it's done. Kahn shows the inside seam on the underbelly of real estate development, deceitful developers and their ravenous lawyers. The Flinch Factor is a great read. Pick it up, but only if you can afford to lose a night's sleep, because you won't be able to put it down.""--Steve Martini on "The Flinch Factor"

""The Flinch Factor is another welcome addition to the wonderful Rachel Gold series, a clever engrossing legal thriller punctuated by sharp humor and many unexpected developments.""--Scott Turow on" The Flinch Factor"

""Both tough-minded and kind, Rachel Gold struggles with two difficult cases in Kahn's enjoyable eighth mystery featuring the St. Louis attorney (after 2002's Trophy Widow). First of all, Rachel is representing residents of a comfortable middle-class neighborhood in their hopeless fight to keep a ruthless real-estate developer from bulldozing their homes to build a gated community. Second, she agrees to help the grieving sister of Nick Moran, a contractor she knew whose death the police have written off as a drug overdose. A trial lawyer himself, Kahn handles the legal details briskly. Even better, as the investigations begin to overlap, Rachel's tense skirmishes with antagonists are balanced with warm interactions with her family and friends--and zany encounters with notoriously eccentric judge Howard Flinch. Rachel may cite Raymond Chandler, but this relaxed, cheerful novel has few traces of noir.""--Publishers Weekly review for The Flinch Factor

""Legal mystery aficionados will be pleased to see St. Louis attorney Rachel Gold back again after a long absence. This is the eighth outing (after Trophy Widow).""--Library Journal review for "The Flinch Factor"

About this edition

• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1464202788
• ISBN 13: 9781464202780
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 262