14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Compelling and clever mystery/thriller, May 24, 2003
William Lashner's "Fatal Flaw" is a terrific novel, a compelling page-turner that's all the more accomplished for the way it succeeds at two antithetical goals. On the baser level, the novel is a wonderful example of that Grisham-patented sub-genre known as the legal thriller. The plot, about a jaded attorney who's asked to defend a law school buddy on a murder charge, is carefully wrought and fiendishly clever, with swoops and twists that are mostly unpredictable but somehow always plausible (at least while you're caught up in the plot's momentum).
Lashner has a florid, hard-boiled, wiseguy style: In contrast to Grisham, who uses words solely to advance his plots, Lashner's love of wordplay and interesting turns of phrase makes his prose a pleasure to read.
The main characters have surprising depth and moral shading. Victor Carl, the defending attorney, has developed impressively (as a character, not necessarily as a human being) since Lashner introduce him in "Hostile Witness." From that novel and its successor, "Veritas", we came to know Victor as the polar opposite of a high-powered attorney: seedy, cynical, and resourceful - very much like Humphrey Bogart in "The Maltese Falcon," but with a Jewish patina.
In "Fatal Flaw," Lashner pushes his hero over the edge of decency and professional ethics. As the novel opens, Victor arrives at the scene of the crime to find his client, Guy Forrest, sitting naked on his doorstep, while the body of Guy's fiancée -- an Appalachia-bred beauty named Hailey Prouix - is still warm upstairs. Without any hesitation, Victor begins rearranging and removing evidence.
How Lashner manages to make this ethically challenged hack likeable - indeed, even heroic - is one of the novel's giddy accomplishments. Equally skillful is the way he uses flashback, clues, and reminiscences to turn Hailey into one of the most intriguing femme fatales in recent memory. (Ashley Judd, call your agent!)
On a higher level, "Fatal Flaw" functions as a kind of meta-mystery, an insinuating parody of the detective novel-slash-legal thriller. Lashner seems to have thrown in every convention, stereotype and affectation he could think of, drawing on influences ranging from Chandler and Cain to Grisham and Turow. The plot twists, while not predictable in themselves, occur at predictable intervals; the racy language is deliberately overheated by just a couple of degrees; and the eccentric supporting characters are rendered (and named) with almost Dickensian flair. It's hard to resist a creation like Phil Skink, the skanky investigator who seems to ooze rancid foreboding from every pore.
As you read each sentence, you can almost hear Lashner chuckling with his tongue planted firmly in his cheek. Yet while this sort of mocking detachment can kill a good thriller, Lashner's approach only enhances it. In "Fatal Flaw," Lashner assembles all the usual suspects of the genre and emerges with something unusually startling and pleasurable.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Prolific!, June 11, 2003
Although this is the third in the Victor Carl series, it was the first I've read to date. Now I can't wait to start at the beginning. The author's style is great, the plot interesting, and the mystery, although pretty easy to figure out, is still a good one. Although I thought at first that Victor Carl was a carbon-copy of lawyers portrayed in other books, I quickly found out this was not so. Lashner has the gift of expression, and the courtroom drama is better than Grisham at his best. I'm a fan!
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Tight Plot!, June 15, 2005
Wow! The plot of this book was not only totally sweet, but also as tight as they come. When you learn in the first chapter that the attorney (Victor Carl) was bopping his best friend, Guy Forrest's fiance, Hailey, then said attorney is called to the scene of Hailey's murder and finds Guy sitting naked on the front steps of the murder scene with the smoking gun in his hand! Whoa! This book grabbed me from the get-go and didn't let go until the final chapter when everything is wrapped up in a nice, neat package. I haven't read a murder mystery this good in many moons. If you're looking for a great summer read, get this one. It won't let you down.
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