Law and Disorder

Law and Disorder is my second Mike Papantonio novel, and it’s the first in his series about Attorney Nick Deketomis, aka “Deke.” In this legal thriller, progressive attorney Deke takes on two powerful adversaries at the same time, a pharmaceutical company whose product killed his daughter’s best friend and nearly killed his daughter as well (he’s also contenting with a corrupt court), and a Texas oil refinery that has been polluting the water table for years and killing the locals as well. The oil refinery is owned by two brothers who inherited their billions and who play their game by psychopathic rules (sounds remarkably like the Koch brothers). When they try to set Deke up for some bad publicity, he accidentally kills his assailant and is then charged with murder. The doctored video of the assault does not look good for Deke. The news coverage is disastrous for the family. I raved about the first Papantonio novel, and I’m equally impressed with the second. The courtroom drama is incredible. So, Mr. Papantonio, when are you going to write your next novel? I’m ready to pre-order it now.

Two Girls Down

I got the chance to read a prepublication thriller from Simon & Schuster, Two Girls Down, by Louisa Luna. Jamie Brandt was a single mother who understandably struggled to deal with the responsibilities for her two girls, 10-year-old Kylie and 8-year-old Bailey. The girls’ father just took off when Jamie was born and he had not been seen or heard from in years. On the way to a birthday party for Kylie’s friend, they stopped at a Kmart. The girls stayed in the car while Jamie ran in to buy a gift which she could barely afford. Despite having been under strict orders not to leave the car, by the time Jamie returned, the girls had disappeared. Very quickly it was determined that they had been kidnapped.

Luna brought a great cast of characters to this story. Alice Vega was the protagonist who specialized in finding missing children, and she was very good at it. Arriving from her home in California, Vega needed some local assistance, and she turned to recently disgraced and voluntarily retired police officer Max “Cap” Caplan, now doing very mundane work as a private investigator. There was more to Cap than his story suggested. He was a divorced father with a precocious 16-year-old daughter, Nell. There were other well-designed individuals in the police department and in the families of all the principal characters, but Vega and Cap were the ones who carried this story.

As Luna developed the characters and set up the plot, the first chapter was a little slow, but by midway through chapter two, I was hooked. My only frustration was that my own life kept interrupting me from reading it all the way through in one sitting – it was that good. The author had twists in the plot that I did not see coming – the resolution was not what I expected. Vega and Cap are the sorts of characters that could carry a long set of novels. I hope to see more from Ms. Luna. The novel is scheduled to be released after the first of the year, so get this one reserved right now.

Two Kinds of Truth by Michael Connelly

Harry Bosch is in his sixties now but shows no sign of slowing down.  Banished from the LAPD for political entanglements, he works cold cases for the San Fernando Police Department as a volunteer.  He repurposes an old retired jail cell across the street from the police station to serve as his office.  Boxes of old unsolved case files can be locked in his office and an old wooden door laid flat and supported by the file boxes functions as his desk.  Harry relishes the solitude but also enjoys his role as mentor and instructor for the three person SFPD detective squad.  With Maddie away at college, this seems the perfect venue for Harry to fulfill his need to help the helpless by doing what he does best… solve murders of people labeled by society as too unimportant to rectify.

Harry is also expected to work some current cases for SFPD… the murder cases.  Two pharmacists, a father and son are shot and killed execution style in their store.  Evidence points toward a pill shill scam orchestrated by the Russian mob.  Harry finds one of his old partners, J. Edgar now working for the medical board assigned to monitor drug prescriptions.  Edgar has contacts with the DEA and hooks Harry up undercover as a homeless opioid addicted pill shill.  He joins a group of desperate addicts who take questionable prescriptions for opioids to numerous pharmacies then turn the pills over to the Russian mob for resale on the streets.  The desperados are flown in an old parachute jump plane to various cities, rich with pharmacies, all over California and are housed in a tent farm in the desert.  Harry hopes to assist the DEA in finding the mob leader as well as the murderers… a dangerous endeavor.

Meanwhile, bureaucratic wheels are turning to free the long-imprisoned Preston Borders who has new evidence that Bosch, once upon a time, framed him.  Harry arrested Borders decades earlier for the rape and murder of a young woman and was instrumental in putting him away.  Now armed with a new lawyer and DNA evidence, Borders is accusing Bosch of planting evidence that wrongly convicted the good citizen.  Bosch remembers the case well and knows in his soul that Borders is guilty.  But Harry’s over zealous reputation and his nasty separation from the LAPD have everyone including his former trusted partner, his half-brother, Mickey Haller and his daughter questioning his actions.  Harry’s reputation as well as everything he stands for is on the line.  He hires Mickey as legal counsel and puts his investigative skills to work to refute Borders’ claim.

Connelly has been my favorite author for decades and shows no sign of letting up.  Harry Bosch’s profound need to help the helpless, no matter who they are, whether he is paid or not, keeps him alive as a human being and as an extraordinary protagonist for a fiction writer.  What will Connelly do next to extend the career and adventures of Harry Bosch?  How is it possible after twenty books to keep getting better and better?

Depraved Indifference

Depraved Indifference is the second of 29 books in the Butch Karp and Marlene Ciampi series, written by Robert K. Tanenbaum. I’ve very favorably reviewed both the first and last novels of this series. These are legal dramas which are played out in the office of the New York City District Attorney. Karp and Ciampi are the protagonists – compelling figures. I jumped into this book eagerly, and the set up was excellent. The story takes place in the mid 1970s. Under the threat of setting off a bomb, a group of Croatian terrorists highjack a plane to bring attention to their cause which is freedom from Croatia from Yugoslavia. In the process, Terrence James Doyle, a cop on the NYPD bomb squad is killed. Usually, bringing a cop killer to justice would be a priority for all law enforcement people, but suddenly there were political roadblocks being thrown in the way of pursuing Doyle’s murderer. That’s where the story lost me. One the one hand, Tanenbaum included his very rich cast of characters in the DA’s office, and he wrote of the ongoing power struggle in the office. But Tanenbaum took the story back to Yugoslavia and the struggles between various ethnic groups during WWII, and since that time. Characters who were alive and involved in horrific atrocities among these ethnic wars were tied to the current murder. So, the case went far afield before Tanenbaum circled the barn a few times and finally brought the story to a satisfactory conclusion. I was not as hot for this story as the other two, but I plan an eventual return visit to Karp and Ciampi once I get caught up on my reading queue.