Slander - Softcover

Deverell, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1550225936 ISBN 13: 9781550225938

Publisher: ECW Press, 2003

Synopsis

Slander is set in rainy, foggy Seattle. The narrator, Liz Finnegan, is a brash, bright, petite women’s rights lawyer. She’s 26, and a defender of abortion clinics (they’re being bombed by "Christian" rednecks), abused women, and related liberal causes. Her nemesis is a handsome, long-haired judge (Vandergraaf) whom she publicly savages, at a press scrum, for giving a slap-on-the-wrist sentence to a white-collar rapist. Along comes a new client, a middle-class woman who has gone back to university as a mature student. When last in college, she was raped by Judge Vandergraaf (she says), then a law student, but was dissuaded by her religiously conservative parents from reporting it. Blocked in her every effort to open up this old case, Liz finally holds an impromptu press conference, laying out the accusations, and daring the judge to sue for slander. It’s the only way she can get the matter before the courts. Vandergraaf takes up the challenge, and sues for $10 million. This is a very well-written legal thriller, more Scott Turow than John Grisham. In addition to delving into women’s issues, the book offers insight into the law of slander. How do courts deal with submerged memories? Are judges beyond the law? Do women receive equal treatment in courts?

About this title

From the Inside Flap

Slander is award-winning author William Deverll's gripping new novel. Set in Seattle and British Columbia, it tells a hard-hitting story of shattered lives, of secrets long-kept and finally revealed, and of the often precarious road to justice.

Elizabeth Finnegan is a young lawyer, bright and headstrong, who finds herself locking horns, not for the first--or the last--time, with Hugh Vandergraaf, a brilliant and charismatic Supreme Court judge. Outraged by the lenient sentence Vandergraaf has just handed down to a convicted rapist, Elizabeth ignites a very public war of words with him both inside and outside the courtroom. When, a few days later, Elizabeth is visited in her office by a woman who makes a stunning claim against Vandergraaf, she takes on what promises to be the trial of her career, in spite of opposition from her firm's senior partners and the Attorney-General's office.

As Elizabeth builds her case against Vandergraaf, she pieces together a portrait of a brooding, ambitious man with powerful allies, who is seemingly addicted to sex and haunted by the demons of his past. But the trial, replete with complications and reluctant witnesses, takes a bizarre turn, and--in a very personal way--Elizabeth gets more than she bargained for.

Told from Elizabeth's point of view, Slander is an engrossing novel in which the genders are at ware and a feminist lawyer takes on the old boys' network. Dark, timely, and with a cast of vividly portrayed characters, Slander once again confirms William Deverell's reputation as one of Canada's most popular authors.

From the Back Cover

"Deverell gets inside a woman's head right down to the reinforced toe of her pantyhose. When Elizabeth Finnegan enters the male arena of the law, even the judge stands naked."--Susan Musgrave

"Simply excellent."--The Globe and Mail

About this edition

• Publisher: ECW Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1550225936
• ISBN 13: 9781550225938
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400