Flesh and Bones: A Jake Lassiter Novel [Hardcover]

Paul Levine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1997

Miami Dolphins linebacker-turned-lawyer Jake Lassiter returns in the seventh Lassiter mystery from acclaimed South Florida writer and former lawyer Paul Levine.

In Flesh & Bones, Jake takes on a seemingly unwinnable case. When Miami model Chrissy Bernhardt strides through a South Beach night spot and plugs three deadly shots into a bar patron, later identified as her tycoon father Harry Bernhardt, the lawyer watches the killing from the next stool. Yet when the apparent murderess asks him to represent her, Jake readily agrees, swayed as always by a pretty face and by nagging glimmers of reasonable doubt.

Mounting Chrissy's legal defense, Jake sets out to unearth the family secrets that molded her past: his cover girl client is either a cold-blooded killer or a sexual abuse victim. Through hypnosis, Chrissy's psychiatrist and trusted friend Dr. Lawrence Schein has helped her remember long-suppressed incidents of childhood incest.

As Jake struggles to learn if the memories are real or fabricated, he stumbles upon a scheme to manipulate South Florida's fresh water supply, masterminded by Chrissy's half-brother Guy. Delving deeper, he uncovers a suspicious link between the doctor and the developer.Once again, the personal and professional become intertwined when Jake falls hard for his beautiful client.

Aided once more in Flesh & Bones, by his unorthodox but faithful braintrust -- moonshine-guzzling Granny Lassiter, cranky retired coroner Doc Riggs and precocious nephew Kip--Jake must keep Chrissy off Death Row if she's to stay in his life.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Pro football player turned lawyer Jake Lassiter is savoring a drink at a South Beach bar when a beautiful young woman shoots the man on the next bar stool and faints in Lassiter's arms. It's one way to get clients, he figures. The woman, Chrissy Bernhardt, is charged with the first-degree murder of her father, whom Chrissy believes abused her as a child. Lassiter takes the case, which is complicated by the fact that Chrissy's repressed memories of her father's abuse have been "unlocked" with the help of a therapist who turns out to be her late mother's former lover. The seventh Lassiter novel continues the series' steady improvement. Lassiter is smart, tough, funny, and very human. He's coming on fast as one of the most entertaining series characters in contemporary crime fiction. Wes Lukowsky

From Kirkus Reviews

Not even a lawyer as light on his feet as Jake Lassiter can find much wiggle room when he himself was one of the dozens of witnesses who watched his client, model Chrissy Bernhardt, walk up to her father in a crowded bar and shoot him three times, sending him spiraling into a fatal heart attack. And things just get worse when Chrissy's psychiatrist, obliging Dr. Lawrence Schein, hands Jake solid-gold evidence of Chrissy's childhood abuse by Harry Bernhardt--something Schein claims is a perfect defense, though it's nothing more or less, to Jake's disillusioned eyes, than the perfect motive for premeditated murder. With no hope of winning acquittal for a client who tells him she wanted to hurt the old man as badly as he'd hurt her and who cheerfully disclaims the slightest sign of remorse, Jake's only prayer is to go for manslaughter. But armed with all those tapes of Dr. Schein's (including the prizewinner, in which Chrissy tells him she's just bought the gun she's going to shoot her father with), who could doubt the premeditation the prosecution alleges--unless of course it's Jake himself, who's broken his usual rule against sleeping with his clients in favor of the deeper rule that draws him to every guilty-looking dame in Miami? Jake just never learns about women--luckily for his fans, who'll find this impossible case, his seventh (Fool Me Twice, 1995, etc.), more tightly wound than any since his debut in To Speak for the Dead (1990). -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company; 1st edition (January 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688143059
• ISBN-13: 978-0688143053
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,166,644 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

PAUL LEVINE worked as a newspaper reporter, a law professor and a trial lawyer before becoming a full-time novelist. Obviously, he cannot hold a job. Paul claims that writing fiction comes naturally: he told whoppers for many years in his legal briefs. His books have been translated into 23 languages, none of which he can read.

He has won the John D. MacDonald fiction award and has been nominated for an Edgar, a Macavity, the International Thriller Writers Award, and the James Thurber Humor Prize.

What's new? Now on Amazon Kindle at $2.99: The 20th Anniversary edition of "To Speak for the Dead," the first of the bestselling Jake Lassiter novels. All author proceeds of the novel are pledged to the Four Diamonds Fund, which supports cancer treatment and research at Penn State Hershey Children's Hospital.

Writing in USA TODAY, Larry King called the Lassiter series, "Mystery writing at its very, very best."

To Speak for the Dead
Night Vision
False Dawn
Mortal Sin
Riptide
Fool Me Twice
Flesh & Bones

A Miami Dolphins linebacker turned hard-nosed lawyer, Lassiter has been described by Booklist as "one of the most entertaining series characters in contemporary crime fiction" and by The Miami Herald as having "a lot more charisma than Perry Mason ever did."

Also now available on Kindle, "Impact," a legal thriller set at the Supreme Court; "Ballistic," in which a homegrown terrorist group takes over a missile silo in Wyoming; and "The Road to Hell," four original short stories.

Paul's other work includes the "Solomon and Lord" series, featuring mismatched Miami lawyers Steve Solomon and Victoria Lord:

Solomon vs. Lord
The Deep Blue Alibi
Kill All the Lawyers
Trial & Error

"Fans of Carl Hiaasen and Dave Barry will enjoy this humorous Florida crime romp," Publishers Weekly wrote of "Solomon vs. Lord."

Paul also wrote "Illegal," a thriller set in the world of human trafficking on the Mexican border. His next novel will be "Lassiter," due in hardcover from Bantam in September 2011.

Paul wrote 20 episodes of the TV series JAG, which gave him an opportunity to steer a nuclear submarine and land on the deck of an aircraft carrier, all without endangering national security. He is a graduate of Penn State University where he majored in journalism and the University of Miami Law School where he majored in the swimming pool. He passed the Florida Bar exam in his first try in what he suspects was a computer glitch.

He was a trial lawyer with the mammoth international law firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, where he did not even pretend to know all his partners' names. He specialized in "complex litigation," cases so abstruse that even lawyers charging 500 bucks an hour didn't fully understand them. He tried hundreds of cases and handled appeals at every level, including the Supreme Court. Along the way, he filed expense accounts nearly as creative as his legal briefs.

Paul says he enjoys writing more than lawyering because he no longer keeps time sheets and gets to work in his underwear. He lives in the hills of Southern California, which he claims are populated by rattlesnakes and coyotes, and those are just the Hollywood agents.

More info at http:www.paul-levine.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A New Paul Levine Fan, May 26, 2003

By 

T. E. Freed "FastFreed" (Pottstown, Pa United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Flesh and Bones (Jake Lassiter Mystery) (Paperback)

I read this book an became an instant Paul Levine fan. Since then I've ordered more of his books. Paul Levine's Jake Lassiter series is witty and extremely entertaining. Couldn't put this book down, and giggled all the while. Loved it.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cheekbones and Chic Bones, July 27, 2005

By 

J. H. Minde "Everything I need is right here" (Boca Raton, Florida and Brooklyn, New York) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Flesh and Bones (Jake Lassiter Mystery) (Paperback)

FLESH AND BONES is the latest and the best of the seven Jake Lassiter novels. In FLESH AND BONES Paul Levine introduces us to, what is for him, a rare bird---a vulnerable, victimized woman. The only problem is that the woman, supermodel Chrissy Bernhardt, is accused of the murder of her own father, shot to death in front of a club full of eyewitnesses.

Levine has written a taut, intelligent, entertaining, and wryly humorous psychothriller. Despite the overwhelming evidence of Chrissy's guilt, Jake takes the case and dedicates himself to finding a way out for his client.

What transpires is a tale of sordid manipulation, exploitation, lies and incest which is engrossing from the outset and never flags.

With FLESH AND BONES not only has Jake Lassiter inherited the mantle of Travis McGee---Paul Levine has joined Scott Turow and John Grisham as one of the best 'legal thriller' authors working today.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Paul Levine's books are all excellent, August 7, 1999

By 

puffinswan "puffinswan" (Brigadoon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flesh and Bones (Jake Lassiter Mystery) (Paperback)

witty, funny, sarcastic, ironic and always a pick me up-Mr. Levine's writing is a sight for sore eyes.