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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Excellent Debut!, September 2, 2008
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In his first novel, A Cure For Night, Justin Peacock has taken a major step towards becoming a "must read" author of legal and "life-on-the-street" thrillers. Peacock tells the very interesting tale of lawyer, Joel Deveraux, who is forced to resign from his top tier corporate law firm after a drug-related scandal, and takes a much lower-paying job with the Public Defender's Office in Brooklyn. In this position, Deveraux, who narrates the story, feels that he is functioning, albeit in a minor way, as a cog in the slow-moving NYC justice system until he accepts "the second chair" alongside a more experienced female Public Defender in a high-profile murder case. Without going into the details of the story and risk spoiling any of the drama that unfolds, it is from this point on that you won't be able to put the book down. In addition to Peacock's exceptional prose and narrative skills, his strong characterizations, and his ability to maintain an ongoing sense of courtroom tension, he does an excellent job of conveying "life" inside the public defender culture as well as in the housing projects in Brooklyn, where selling drugs too often paves the road to money and prestige. For an experienced author to tell a compelling story in such a way that the reader is willing to delay whatever else has to be done in order to read what happens next is a major accomplishment, and a sure sign of a bestseller. For Peacock to accomplish this so well in his first book makes him an author who, in "my book," deserves a large reader audience and one who has the potential to climb quickly to the top of the list of bestselling authors. The only minor criticism I have is that while Peacock creates a vivid depiction of his characters' personalities, I would have liked to have been provided a stronger profile of their physical descriptions. I am already looking forward to Peacock's next book; but, until then will be recommending A Cure For Night to my family and friends. Do yourself a favor and read A Cure For Night!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A very solid first novel, September 20, 2008
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
The last two novels I read before this one were from solid "name brand" authors. And...they were disappointing schlock. Justin Peacock is a new author and perhaps because he is new, he has put some care into his work and created a strong book that I can easily recommend.
The title comes from this little exchange between two defense attornies:
"That's what the criminal law is: it's how the day tries to correct the night's mistakes. Most of my cases, people have done something they never would've dreamed of doing in broad daylight."
"What does that make us?" I said. "The night's janitors?"
"We're absolutely that," Myra said, sipping her cosmo. "What else do we do but clean up after it? That's why we'll never run out of work. Not unless someone invents a cure for night."
This gritty, dark book features a New York City Public Defense Attorney, Joel Deveraux, that has his own troubled past (with drugs) that has caused him to fall from the fast track in a big-time, big money law firm. Joel is working himself up through the system and he is tapped to be second-chair on a murder case that involves an inner-city drug dealer, a Jewish college student and a lot more.
On a real positive, Justin Peacock has gone out of his way to include correct-sounding dialects - the people from the projects sound authentic to my ear. Although I am not "in the life", I have taught in urban schools for 8 years and Peacock's a lot more accurate than most of those that even bother to try to catch the dialect.
Fans of Robert K. Tanenbaum ( Reckless Endangerment) will like this one.
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Cure for Night, August 30, 2008
A Cure for Night: A NovelWhat a good read, I really enjoyed this book. At one point, just shy of the end (20 pages or so) I stopped reading one night, simply because I didn't want it to end. I then leisurely enjoyed the final twist the next day. The story is strong and the characters well flushed out. Joel's (the main character) self loathing and fear of himself and others is very endearing. Both sexes are well represented here and both read very true. Being an attorney, I know how boring law can be, BUT somehow Justin Peacock made it interesting again. This book is well worth the money, just buy sit back and enjoy!
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