Defiance County [Hardcover]

Jay Brandon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1996

Investigating a double homicide in the sleepy town of Galilee, Texas, young assistant D.A. Kelsey Thatch finds a community of divided loyalties and learns that the answers are hidden in the nearby woods. By the author of Local Rules.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

An unexpected twist energizes this exemplary legal thriller: the reader is thrown right into the middle of the story, along with special prosecutor Kelsey Thatch, when she arrives in Galilee, Tex., to investigate a double murder and a kidnapping in which the main suspect, Billy Fletcher, is the brother of Galilee District Attorney Morgan Fletcher. Like many small-town crime novels, this one features a tangle of family relationships, as well as a matriarch who runs the place?here, the imposing Alice Beaumont, who owns the factory that dominates Galilee. Beaumont's daughter Lorrie was one of the murder victims; her granddaughter Taylor is missing; her daughter Katherine is Morgan Fletcher's wife, and so the accused's sister-in-law?which, in Beaumont's mind, gives her more than enough right to tell Kelsey how to run her prosecution. But there are many skeletons in the Beaumont family closet, and Kelsey discovers them in a series of revelations that draws the reader inexorably into an increasingly complicated plot. While the solution to the murder/kidnapping doesn't quite balance the buildup, all the other plot elements are well matched, from the skeleton in Kelsey's own closet to her romance with a police assistant who may or may not be trustworthy. Ex-DA Brandon (Local Rules) shines in the trial scenes, and throughout infuses vitality into an overworked genre.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Kelsey Thatch, an assistant DA, is sent to a remote East Texas town to prosecute an unpleasant double murder involving the town's ruling family. A suspect is in custody, and the only puzzling aspect of the apparently straightforward case is that the dead couple's baby is missing. With more self-confidence than evidence, Kelsey takes the case to trial. Not much to our surprise, the obligatory reversal in the last chapter makes us see that the defendant, his relatives, and the courts of Defiance County have been carefully manipulated by the real murderer. This novel by the best-selling author of Loose Among the Lambs (Pocket, 1993) offers mildly diverting courtroom drama but is not interesting enough to overcome the flat dialog and weakly sketched characters. For large popular collections.?Edwin B. Burgess, U.S. Combined Arms Research Lib., Fort Leavenworth, Kan.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 373 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Books; 1St Edition edition (May 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671536540
• ISBN-13: 978-0671536541
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,263,987 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jay Brandon (1953- ) grew up and his lived primarily in San Antonio, Texas. A graudate of the University of Texas, he also has a Master's degree from The Writing Seminars of Johns Hopkins University, and a J.D. from the University of Houston.
Brandon is the author of 15 novels and one book of non-fiction, as well as a number of short stories published in anthologies.
Brandon has also been a lawyer since 1985. His first job out of law school was at the Court of Criminal Appeals, the highest criminal court in Texas. He then served as an assistant district attorney of Bexar County (San Antonio), Texas, and a staff attorney on the Fourth Court of Appeals of Texas, before going into private practice in 1990.
Brandon's 1990 novel FADE THE HEAT, his first legal thriller, was shortlisted for the Edgar Award and optioned by Amblin Entertainment. That and later novels have been published by more than a dozen foreign published, with worldwide distribution.
Brandon is married and the father of three children. He is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters and the American Crime Writers League (although he generally dislikes belonging to any group; just a natural prejudice).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Passionless Prosecution, September 16, 2000

By 

James W. Christian "scripophilist" (San Antonio, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Defiance County (Mass Market Paperback)

Author Jay Brandon sends state prosecutor Kelsey Thatch into the murky enclave of Galilee, deep in the Piney Woods of East Texas, to pinch hit for local DA Morgan Fletcher, who's got a major conflict of interest--his brother Billy's been indicted for a double murder. This is a whodunit and armchair sleuths too easily focus on Morgan instead of Billy. And that's without the aid of the Texas Ranger assigned to help Kelsey with the investigation. He only shows up long enough to say he can't stay. (A Texas Ranger derelict in his duty? Unbelievable!) Apparently, Brandon forgets about the Ranger to bring on a local deputy as his surrogate and Kelsey's romantic interest. To find the facts, Kelsey struggles with the social labyrinth of the inbred East Texas town. The plot twists become fairly predictable and the story never catches fire. In the end the reader really doesn't care what happens to any of them.