Death in Good Company [Hardcover]

Gretchen Sprague (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1997

Barely into her first week as a volunteer lawyer with a Brooklyn poverty-law office, retiree Martha Patterson stumbles upon the body of a murdered client. Her sense of noblesse oblige combines with an unquenchable curiosity to involve her in the investigation, leading her among strange people in stranger surroundings.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

Talk about starting with a bang. While retired and widowed lawyer Martha Patterson is still being warned against ``the Mother Teresa syndrome'' in her new job at West Brooklyn Legal Services, one of the paralegals bursts into the office bleeding from a head wound; he's been mugged, says Carlos Quinones, by three men who stole the rent-strike money he'd just collected from The Building. Hours later, just after Martha gets off the phone with Tessie Doone, a tenant of The Building whose Social Security checks have stopped coming, crazy Wilma Oberfell stalks into the office claiming ``I don't know whom I can trust'' before following Martha home, then skulking away. And the next day, when Martha goes out to The Building to talk to Tessie, she runs into Wilma again, strangled by a convenient burglar. Even if you don't believe the burglar story, the suspects--the decamped tenants' association treasurer at The Building, Tessie's fast-talking grandson Kareem Hewitt, a mysterious man on The Building's fire escape, and of course all those lawyers at Brooklyn Legal Services--are almost too plentiful to believe. Sprague follows her Edgar-winning YA novel, Signpost to Terror (1967), with a mazelike tale that not only features an unobtrusively gifted detective--Martha's eye for detail puts her head and shoulders above most of her big-ticket competition--but provides a virtual handbook of rarely fictionalized pro bono legal maneuvers. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 213 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr; 1st edition (November 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312168136
• ISBN-13: 978-0312168131
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,725,126 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exciting detective-novel with a social dimension., December 17, 1997

By 

I. L. Frankis (England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Death in Good Company (Hardcover)

Gretchen Sprague is a brilliant newcomer to crime-fiction. Emma Lathen meets Walter Mosley when privileged lawyers work for justice for the multi-ethnic underclass, but which side of the social divide are the criminals on? As the gripping climax develops, clues previously scattered throughout the tale are unobtrusively pulled together, making this a beautifully constructed classic novel of detection. Lawyer Martha Patterson makes a splendid detective, cool, sharp, with an dry sense of humour and a social conscience. The most enjoyable detective novel I have read in many years. John Frankis.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Mystery with a Likeable New Sleuth, June 5, 2002

By 

seventeen degrees - See all my reviews

This review is from: Death In Good Company (Paperback)

Martha Patterson spent nearly fifty years as a trusts and estates attorney, but found retirement stifling. So she's taken an old acquaintance up on his offer to put her to work as a pro bono attorney at his poverty law firm, West Brooklyn Legal Services.

Wilma Oberfell isn't even her client, but Martha feels a fleeting connection with the woman. Wilma barely has time to introduce herself and say "I don't know whom I can trust" before losing the opportunity to unburden herself to Martha. When she discovers Wilma's strangled body, she feels a responsibility to find out what it was Wilma had wanted to tell her, and who it was who went to such lengths to silence Wilma. Martha goes from not knowing what to do with herself (she had not gotten a handle on retirement) to having lots to do. She has a caseload, including a spirited client named Tessie Doone (a great character). Her co-workers include a charming actor-turned-attorney and his ex-significant-other, an attorney who now hates him, a pixieish paralegal, a shady paralegal, and a couple of dozen others, most of whose names Martha can't recall.

I liked this book very much. There's a lot going on, but things never get convoluted, just nicely complex. The author worked for eleven years as a legal services attorney, and expertly weaves lessons about poverty law into the story. It never feels like the story stops for a lecture, but in the process of telling an intriguing story, Sprague gives an interesting crash-course on poverty law. Martha is a very likeable character. She's extremely sharp, and her motivation for getting involved in Wilma's case is believable. She felt a connection with the woman, she feels it was her fault Wilma didn't get to tell her what was going on, and she does not want to go home to read Pride and Prejudice again. The other characters are also well-drawn, and the plotting is very good. One quibble: Martha says "Just so" too often! Still, an excellent read.