Compelling Evidence - Hardcover

Martini, Steve

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0399137122 ISBN 13: 9780399137129

Publisher: Putnam Pub Group, 1992

Synopsis

In a courtroom drama, Talia Potter, indicted for the murder of her judge husband, turns to her lover, Paul Madriani--her husband's ex-law partner--to defend her

About this title

Reviews

YA-- Ben Potter, successful lawyer and possible U. S. Supreme Court nominee, is found dead in his office--suicide or murder? All of the police evidence points to foul play, and his beautiful young wife, Talia, stands trial for a crime she claims she didn't commit--or did she? Paul Madriani defends Talia, but, in doing so, exposes a part of his own life that he would like to forget. This gripping, fast-paced novel will hold YAs' attention from beginning to startling conclusion.
- Robert Lisker, W.T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A year after he's fired from the California law firm of Potter, Skarpellos by Ben Potter, who's found out he's having an affair with Ben's wife Talia, corporate-turned-criminal lawyer Paul Madriani is asked to join Talia's defense--on a charge of murdering Ben on the eve of his nomination to the Supreme Court. It's the other partner, Tony (``the Greek'') Skarpellos, who inveigles Madriani to put aside two other investigations--helping county medical examiner George Cooper figure out who abandoned his daughter to burn to death after a car crash, and defending high- profile hooker Susan Hawley, who doesn't want to implicate her well- placed clients in ``boinkgate'' even if she's granted immunity--and to sign on as assisting counsel to nitwit glamourpuss Gibert Cheetam, who promptly runs Talia's defense into the ground and jumps ship after the grand jury indicts her. So Madriani, his affair with Talia making him painfully vulnerable, takes over as chief counsel, infuriating his estranged wife Nikki even before he realizes that Skarpellos, who stands to inherit the hugely profitable firm if Talia takes the rap, has set him up. Martini (The Simeon Chamber, 1988), whose early scenes could have used some advice from assisting counsel too (the obligatory between-the-sheets flashback is introduced by noting ``the cold wetness of my own passions, a small portion of which had pooled in the creases of the sheets beneath where her loins had rested''), rouses himself for the well-paced trial scenes, which heat up even further when news of the Talia/Madriani affair reaches the ears of the presiding judge, determined that no mistrial's going to stand in the way of his reelection--and when Madriani decides to pin his hopes on an all-out assault on Skarpellos. The final surprise, though, is eminently guessable. Martini is no Scott Turow--his characters are thinner, his prose flabbier--but his legal intrigue will probably keep you up just as late. (Book-of-the-Month Dual Selection for Spring) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Putnam Pub Group
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0399137122
• ISBN 13: 9780399137129
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 379