The Jury Master by Robert Dugoni

The Jury Master by Robert Dugoni is the first in his David Sloane series, first published in 2006. Sloane is a gifted and successful criminal defense attorney in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has a spellbinding effect on juries, but this is not a courtroom drama. Sloane had grown up with the information that his parents were killed in an auto accident when he was a boy, and he was then raised in a series of foster homes. Although he succeeded despite those handicaps, his personal life was nearly empty beyond his relationship with one old woman and another, his secretary at the law firm. What did Sloane have to do with the death of Joe Branick, personal friend and confident of the President of the United States, Robert Peak? Branick died in a national park in West Virginia while Sloane was touring Yosemite Park in California, and Sloane had never heard Branick’s name.

This was a story of international intrigue, a conspiracy about oil and politics, great tragedies that had been swept under the rug 30 years earlier, and Sloane’s discovery of his real identity. Dugoni has written a true page-turner. The action was non-stop even if some of the connections between the subplots sometimes seemed sketchy. I thought some of his similes were a bit pedestrian: “[the bullet] had ripped through the man’s temple like a runaway freight train” or “Stress weighed on some men like wet clothes, leaving them weighed down and drained.” But, for the most part, the writing was solid, and Dugoni’s character development was good enough. I’m not ready to elevate this author to my power rotation, but I’m going to get the second David Sloane novel and see what develops in the 5-book series. Dugoni also has some free-standing novels.

In 12/24, I listened to this book in audio format, having completely forgotten I had already read it. My opinions are unchanged except that I should add that the similes were almost non-stop, often pretty funny and enjoyable. It's not great literature and I'd give it a B grade for mystery. Still, I enjoyed my time with the book and tolerated the reality-testing elements in the story.