Customer Reviews

Final Appeal

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I've read three other Scottoline books and liked all better than this. Of course, this was written when she was a fledgling novelist, so she's learned much from good editors over the years. In this book, she writes in first person, which I found limiting. Supporting characters did not ring true at all. Also, her political views determine the course of the plot. This is a very bad mistake, I believe. All of the more conservative types are villians, all of the liberals are heroes. Identity of killer is predictable for that reason alone, and it's not a good enough reason. One wonders why this particular book won an Edgar Award.

In her later books, like Legal Tender and Mistaken Identity, I give Scottoline an A for plotting and an A+ for pacing. They're written in third person and her quirky characters are all interesting if not totally believable. But the books move so fast, you go with the flow anyway.

Final Appeal was the first Lisa Scottoline book that I read. I have to agree with some of the other reviewers here. At least half of this book was senseless chatter, and the novel did not seem to flow smoothly. But because the other half of the time, the novel did seem to flow smoothly, I plugged away and finished the book. I didn't like the first-person, present-tense type of writing found in this book, but this has not been encountered in any of Lisa's other books that I've read so far.

Since I had bought five other Scottoline paperbacks recently, I decided to keep reading. And I'm glad I did! I have really enjoyed reading her other books so far. They are 'unputdownable-type' of books, and I'll continue to buy her books. The stories flow smoothly in Legal Tender, Moment Of Truth, Mistaken Identity, and Running From The Law, without the needless chatter found in Final Appeal. I'll be starting The Vendatta Defense today and expect that I'll not want to put it down until I finish it later today.

I still need to buy Everywhere That Mary Went, Rough Justice, and Courting Trouble. I've read all of John Grisham's books and have to say that Lisa Scottoline is now one of my favorite top-five authors, along with John Grisham.

It is easy to see why Final Appeal won the Edgar Allen Poe award! It's pace is swift, the plot line totally believable and Ms. Scottoline's characters are so real you speculate about them long after you finish this delightful novel. One can only hope Grace Rossi appears in another Scottoline novel soon!

I have struggled with Final Appeal from the first page! I'm usually a fast reader, but it is almost immosible for me to get into this book. The storyline is predictable, and there is too much plodding dialoge. I think reading Michael Connley has spoiled me!

This book has an explosive beginning with lawyer Grace Rossi being seduced by Chief Judge Armen Gregorian in his office at around 4am. They were working overtime in more ways than one. Yes, they are both adults and past the age of consent but this is a professional relationship between a senior elderly judge and a young lawyer. Is he exploiting her, does he love her, does she love him? So many questions, not just for love struck Grace, but for the reader.

Where will the story go from here? Well, by the time Grace has gone home to bed and woken up a few hours later Gregorian has been found dead with a single bullet in his brain. To everyone but Grace this is suicide. To Grace it is clearly murder. She knows that no one can declare one's love, make love and commit suicide within an hour. However Grace is unable to argue her case to anyone as the evidence for murder seems convincing and after all, Armen is "happily" married to his high profile wife currently fighting for election to political office in the state.

Lisa Scottoline's challenge now is to hold the reader's attention for the final ninety percent of the book. Unfortunately she fails sadly and the major plot is pushed into the background by issues such as Grace's mother, Grace's long vanished father, the personal relationship difficulties of her daughter and the introduction of Gregorian's dog Beatrice who Grace adopts as a link to her late lover. There is little of Scottoline's usual story line where the lady lawyer turns cop under the pressure of perceived personal threat from the unknown. No great threat is presented in this story and consequently the reader has little fear for the heroine's well being. Grace's own belief that Armen was murdered does provide the loose thread for the rest of the story which slowly evolves in between miscellaneous family relationship issues. The major interest line was not maintained and the tale drifted along to a not unexpected conclusion with a confusing cast of several highly unbelievable characters introduced along the way.

This story was a few notches below Scottoline's best and was a frustrating read after the imaginative and wonderful start to the story. In summary then: a brilliant beginning with mouth-watering prospects but a poor ending that couldn't match the expectation.

This was a disappointment and not at all what I expected from a book that won an Edgar. If the soap opera dialog and interaction between the protagonist (Grace Rossi) and her daughter, mother, father, exhusband, best friend were eliminated there would be a wonderfully compact legal whodoneit. The characters involved in the legal action are believable, the plot interesting and is nicely resolved. This is not the only award winner for Lisa Scottoline, so I am tempted to try another, hoping for less soap and more thrills.

Despite some of the criticism of this novel, I found "Final Appeal" an altogether enjoyable read. It's told in the first person by Grace Rossi, a single mother working in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as a newly-appointed assistant to the hot chief judge, Armen Gregorian. Just hours after their one-night stand, Armen allegedly commits suicide, but Grace is reluctant to accept this, despite their relationship being just a superficial roll in the hay--or office, in this case. Instead, she spends the duration of the book tracking down his killer, with some help from Shake and Bake (one of my favorite characters), an FBI agent leading a double life as an eccentric raincoat/bonnet-wearing derelict (thus his nickname). As a mystery, "Final Appeal" wasn't very suspenseful (no major life-and-death scares until around the climax), but it was a fast, easy read, which reminded me of some of James Patterson's work. The dialogue was realistic, though the profanity made the characters sound like they were in a high school locker room rather than a courtroom. Still, this was a nice, fluffy legal thriller full of dry wit and humor. I look forward to reading more by Scottoline.

After reading and enjoying "Everywhere That Mary Went," Lisa Scottoline's first mystery novel, I was disappointed in this effort. Although the main character is sufficiently developed and the story will be of interest to those familiar with Philadelphia, the plot itself -- the cornerstone of any mystery novel -- is fair at best. The various clues seem contrived. There are fewer of the clever observations which permeated "Mary". Worst of all, the novel lacks the suspense which mystery readers crave: "whodunit" is reasonably predictable, and for obvious reasons.

I am surprised that this novel won an Edgar. It held my interest, but is nowhere near the novels of, say, Michael Connelly. It is a nice, quick beach read, but you can find many better novels in this genre.

I learned long ago to skim through the Amazon reader reviews before I invest a weekend ( or a long rainy afternoon ) in an unknown ( to me ) author. But since my wife brought a paperback copy of "Final Appeal" home, and it WAS cold and raining outside, I took a chance. I now know that I should have walked over to the local library instead and started with one of Scottoline's later ( and presumed much, much better ) offerings. I suggest you do the same; pass this one by and get one of her later mysteries.

Grace Rossi is a single mother who is a parttime lawyer for a federal appeals court. Much to her dismay, she is assigned a murder case but things improve when Grace's researching the case leads to romance. After a romantic evening, Grace is horrified to discover that her lover has died of an apparent suicide. She discovers that he had had an active love life and she immediately suspects his wife of murdering him. This is the fourth Lisa Scottoline book I have read and is probably the weakest one so far. Most of the action and suspense are contained in the first few chapters, and the book begins to meander and lose focus after that.