No Physical Evidence - Hardcover

Lee, Gus

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 044991139X ISBN 13: 9780449911396

Publisher: Fawcett, 1998

Synopsis

A lawyer divided between cultures and torn by grief. A gripping, page-turning plot. An intense courtroom showdown. Acclaimed author Gus Lee combines these elements into an electrifying novel of legal suspense as several lives hinge on the verdict in one shocking case.

Joshua Jin is a deputy district attorney whose life is in crisis and his job in jeopardy. Now he is handed a politically charged Chinatown case involving the rape of a thirteen-year-old girl. The victim refuses to talk. The ex-con charged with the crime was arrested on a hunch. And . . . there is no physical evidence.

As an Asian-American prosecutor, Jin is under immense pressure from Chinatown to win a conviction. First, however, he must earn the confidence of his stone-silent client, a distant, troubled teenager who trusts no one. Working against a brilliant, high-priced defense attorney who wants nothing more than to crush the opposition--particularly when her opposition is Josh Jin--he throws his heart and soul into an impossible case that is far more explosive than he had ever imagined.

A stunning courtroom drama pulsing with the rhythm of the streets and the politics of the Asian-American experience, No Physical Evidence is fast, furious, and surprising: a passionate novel of crime, punishment, and ultimate redemption.

About this title

About the Author

Gus Lee was a supervising deputy district attorney, an Army Judge Advocate, and a paratrooper. He was legal counsel to congressional investigations into military misconduct and won the Silk Purse Award and other distinctions for trial advocacy. He was the statewide trainer for California prosecutors, the deputy director of the California District Attorneys Association, and a senior executive for the State Bar of California. Now a full-time writer, he is married and has two children, and continues to be a trainer for the FBI, the Department of Justice, and a variety of business entities.

From the Back Cover

"No Physical Evidence is a novel of great breadth and depth--a compelling story of a struggling lawyer facing the fight of his career. The courtroom action is first rate, and the characters as memorable as the story itself."
--Richard North Patterson

From the Inside Flap

ided between cultures and torn by grief. A gripping, page-turning plot. An intense courtroom showdown. Acclaimed author Gus Lee combines these elements into an electrifying novel of legal suspense as several lives hinge on the verdict in one shocking case.

Joshua Jin is a deputy district attorney whose life is in crisis and his job in jeopardy. Now he is handed a politically charged Chinatown case involving the rape of a thirteen-year-old girl. The victim refuses to talk. The ex-con charged with the crime was arrested on a hunch. And . . . there is no physical evidence.

As an Asian-American prosecutor, Jin is under immense pressure from Chinatown to win a conviction. First, however, he must earn the confidence of his stone-silent client, a distant, troubled teenager who trusts no one. Working against a brilliant, high-priced defense attorney who wants nothing more than to crush the opposition--particularly when her opposition is Josh Jin--he throws his heart and soul into an

Reviews

Overwritten, overplotted legal procedural, set in a richly atmospheric Chinese-American Sacramento, that makes a compelling point about the challenges involved in investigating and punishing sex criminals. The recent death of Chinese-American prosecutor Josh Jin's 11-year-old daughter from congenital heart disease not only rendered him emotionally incapable of trying cases but foolish enough to ask his boss, hard-drinking District Attorney Tommy Conover, to apologize for decking a local cop. Conover retaliates by assigning Jin to prosecute a rape case that Jin is certain to lose. Caucasian 13-year old Rachel Farr, whose father and stepmother live in one of the citys predominantly Asian districts, won't even talk of how she suffered at the hands of ex-con ``Chico'' Moody, an unemployed, disabled veteran known to befriend runaway children. Though Rachel shows the psychological scars of vicious sexual abuse, she refuses to submit to a detailed physical examination. That, plus some shoddy police work, leaves Jin without physical evidence tying her to Moody, whos represented by the beautiful, expensive, and highly competent defense attorney Stacy August, Josh Jin's former lover. As soon as Jin, Sacramentos only Chinese-American prosecutor, zealously pursues the case, hes warned to drop it by city hall sleazes who are suddenly afraid that, by losing it, Jin would doom Conover's chances for reelection. The Chinatown community, meanwhile, wants Jin to persist. Jin himself, who longs to be accepted in American society but is having a tough time staying true to his Chinese roots, can't help but see his dead daughter in Rachel. Alas, author Lee (Tigers Tail, 1996, etc.), in fact a former district attorney, cant simply tell the agonizing story of emotionally charged teenage rape cases but buries his tale in annoying complexities about nasty judges, boorish cops, and a conspiracy of closet pedophiles. Awkward legal melodrama enriched by passionate pleading for the protection of children. (Book-of-the-Month alternate selection) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

As a courtroom drama, No Physical Evidence is first-rate.... Lee's characters sparkle; his dialogue is sharp, his observations tart.... If you like your investigations by the Sgt. Joe Friday book, or your courtroom endings Perry Mason tidy, No Physical Evidence isn't for you. With Gus Lee, convention is strictly for Shriners. And he keeps you guessing right to the taut, thoughtful, cleverly plotted conclusion.

His young daughter dead of a heart defect, his beautiful wife gone, his career at the Sacramento DA's office on the rocks, Joshua Jin?the hero of this wooden thriller?has lost nearly everything. All that's left is the one case dumped on his desk, the Chinatown rape of a 13-year-old Anglo girl named Rachel, who refuses to talk or to provide physical evidence of her assault. Jin realizes the case is a loser, just a way for the DA to send a Chinese-American lawman into Chinatown right before an election, but he refuses to drop it, despite suspiciously vehement orders from upstairs. Rachel's rape evokes too many memories of his beloved daughter; besides, counsel for the suspect is Stacy August, his dangerously gorgeous ex-girlfriend. Former deputy DA Lee (Tiger's Tail) has concocted a rich premise here, mixing together Chinese life and American legal practice, political realities and private grief. He obviously knows his way around a courtroom: Jin's efforts to select, then romance, the jury read like a primer on trial practice. But the labored plot is slow to develop, and, when it does, Lee provides constant recaps, underestimating the reader's ability to follow the action. His stock characters (one foul-mouthed detective with a heart of gold, one computer-geek law intern, one femme fatale, etc.) talk and think in notably awkward noir-ese ("I tried not to like her too much, but her words were bread crumbs to a deeper sense of self"). The resolution, implicating far too many characters on both sides of the law, goes down like a two-ton wonton. BOMC alternate.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Joshua Jin, deputy district attorney, is still recovering from the death of his young daughter when he's handed a no-win case: the brutal rape of a 13-year-old girl, for which there is no physical evidence. As a Chinese American, Jin could swing the Chinatown vote with a guilty verdict?without it, he could lose his job. Worse, a sadistic pedophile would walk free, while a terrified teenager lives, haunted by the memory of her tormentor. Despite such clinkers as "a precise mouth that was a friend to laughter, competence, dear friends, fast meals, and verbal skills, " No Physical Evidence quickly accelerates. Lee, a former deputy district attorney and celebrated author of China Boy (LJ 4/1/91) and Tiger's Tail (LJ 3/15/96), delivers a fast-paced legal thriller that will keep readers tense and guessing. For most fiction collections.?Christine Perkins, Jackson Cty. Lib. Svcs., Medford, OR
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Josh Jin has settled into a life without hope. His beloved daughter Summer is dead, and he can't surmount the pain. His career as a prosecuting attorney seems over; now he works intake, where washed-up district attorneys end up working on routine felony arrests. Due to an administrative snafu, he catches a rape case involving a 13-year-old Chinatown girl. She's virtually nonresponsive and terrified. Josh begins to connect his own salvation with his ability to get justice for young Rachel. Josh's case zeroes in on Karl Moody, a fringe hood with a history of befriending adolescent girls. But Josh's chances of winning the case look bleak--there's no physical evidence; he has no credibility with the sitting judge; and every politician in Sacramento has turned away from the case. This is not a courtroom drama ala Grisham; this is the chronicle of one man's struggle to regain a foothold in a life gone wrong and to pull another lost soul back from the edge of the abyss. A challenging, intellectually stimulating odyssey of the soul that concludes on a sobering, real-world note. Wes Lukowsky

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

A sultry evening wind stirred trees and made old newspapers cavort down back alleys. Street dogs growled at shadows, and Metro cops knew that something was coming their way.

Sergeant William McManus trailed a tan Cutlass Supreme into brick-cobbled Old Town. Near Fat City Café, the Cutlass slowed, its four male, watch-capped passengers checking out dangling purses in the festive summer boardwalk crowds. The Cee Supreme was the most popular U.S. car for auto theft. McManus ran the plates, but they came back clean.

Sergeant McManus was a compact man with sharp eyes, good teeth, and a nose for trouble. He nodded; his partner unlocked the riot gun and called for backup. But the Cutlass accelerated past the overflowing bars and restaurants and headed for center city. McManus had no probable cause to turn on the lights. He followed, waiting to make a solid stop.

A mile away, in a modernist steel downtown café bar for lawyers and lobbyists called A Shot of Class, a svelte woman in red opened the door, admitting a warm night wind that made the air conditioner huff. Table candles flickered and the barman sensed something in the warning breeze. He retrieved a concealed Colt automatic and slipped it in his pocket.

The piano player was doing "Perfidia" while Thomas Andrew Conover III held night court for the faithful, the curious, and the thirsty. Conover casually checked out the woman in red. It had been a good press week for the District Attorney. Some columnists loved Tommy's rugged good looks, his history as a boxer, his robust optimism. But slam-dunk ballot box wins were news-killers and most journalists would welcome a Conover disaster, something dark and insidious that would make the smug election a contest and drive citizens to their newspapers.

Her red dress slid on black leather, a trim hip touching Tommy with a soft, electric contact that made him think that somehow he knew her. But Tom was tiredly forgetful, dangerously unattached, and warm with drink.

"Yo!" he called. "Whatever she wants." He removed his coat and loosened his silk tie. In moments, she was considering him over an ice-cold Margarita. Tommy had been relating a long-ago bout. Now he rebegan his account of the fifth round, when he had knocked his opponent's mouthpiece into the cheap seats as the lubricated crowd roared and the enemy corner tossed a torn, pink-stained towel into the ring to a chorus of flash photography.

"Can you still fight?" Her question dilated his best capillaries. She was an advocate of blood sports, games of risk, and late-night shots at catastrophe. Hot lipstick broke the glass's salt rim. Sweet green eyes, heavy black hair, a good chest, a bumpy past.

The Cutlass's torn roof smoothed with the turn into the dead end of Eleventh and the K Street Mall. To the left of the four men was the looming Old Latin gravity of the Cathedral of the Holy Sacrament. Opposite was A Shot of Class, bright, warm, and rhythmic.

Billy McManus didn't like a four-pack of heavies this close to the DA's traditional Friday night watering hole. And Thomas Conover's bodyguard, a bald, spectacularly stupid ex-wrestler named Large Louis, was as useful in these matters as a dead cat in a pool game.

McManus kind of liked the DA, the way cops kind of liked all prosecutors. DAs were a necessary vice--they did the trials that put the bad guys away. But DAs were still lawyers who could bust good cops for overenthusiastic arrests, or publicly crap on the Blues to fatten a lead in the polls in a tight election year. Luckily, there was no sweat; this election was a done deal.

The Cutlass driver saw the trailing police cruiser and smoothly backed out. McManus turned to follow when a woman's bright, bloody cry of terror cut through the warm air. McManus braked, tires smoking toward the mall, giving up the Buick for the scream.

"I can still fight," said Tom with a sly Kevin Costner grin. He turned as a woman's eyewatering shriek jiggled ice cubes and made drinkers inhale mixed drinks. The piano player froze on the keys. Tom, his antenna alerted, looked toward the cathedral.

There, on the steps, an obese man bellowed violently at a woman in a short white dress, making her twist and scream crazily against his strong-armed grip.

With an oath, Tom was up. He knocked over jacketed waiters, small tables, and slow patrons, bulled through a fire door, setting off panic alarms. He stepped into the mall's warm night air, closed the distance, and rocked Obese Man with a huge right cross that induced a brain-rattling loss of memory and consciousness. Tom hauled Obese Man up for a combination encore, and now the woman screamed even louder, damaging local eardrums.

Edition details

• Publisher: Fawcett
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 044991139X
• ISBN 13: 9780449911396
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 387