The Judgment [Large Print] [Hardcover]

William Jeremiah Coughlin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1997

MysteryLarge Print EditionVintage Coughlin . . . sharp, tight and full of suspense and wisdom. Enjoy it. Scott TurowAce lawyer Charley Sloan is drawn into a case involving the bizarre murders of small children. Someone is killing them, bathing them, then wrapping them in plastic and arranging them like angels in the new-fallen snow. But before Charley can get any kind of handle on the case, Detroits police chief Mark Conroy asks Charley to defend him against charges that he stole millions from funds meant to pay off informants. Charley has no idea that between these two cases, hell find himself in a web of danger the likes of which hes never imagined.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Charlie Sloan, ace lawyer and recovering alcoholic, is back on the scene. Sloan's client is Detroit's deputy police chief, who is charged with stealing $1 million from a secret slush fund to pay off drug informants. Charlie's girlfriend, police detective Sue Gillis, is pressing Charlie to commit to a new stage in their relationship, but they find themselves on opposite sides of the fence in the hunt for a serial killer who suffocates young children and lays them out like angels in the snow, encased in plastic sheeting. And someone in the mayor's office has bugged Charlie's office. In Charlie, Coughlin presents a credible hero who faces interesting and difficult challenges. Coughlin, a former defense attorney and a judge in Detroit for 20 years, published 16 novels before his death in 1992, including Death Penalty (HarperCollins, 1992). Enjoyable formula fiction; recommended.?David Keymer, California State Univ., Stanislaus
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

Satisfying, if meandering, Detroit-area legal procedural continues the adventures of Charley Sloan, in a second posthumous thriller from Coughlin (Heart of Justice, 1995). If Coughlin, a former Detroit defense lawyer and judge who died on the cusp of fame in 1993, becomes the V.C. Andrews of lawyer novels, the genre would only benefit from more tales about Sloan, a thrice-married, worldly-wise, recovering alcoholic who, as he ages, takes time to indulge his conscience, do the right thing- -and occasionally get paid for it. This time, Sloan is stretched between the demands of a high-profile police corruption case involving $1 million stolen from the police informants' fund and the hunt for a serial murderer (of children) whose depredations put a severe emotional stress on Sloan's relationship with his girlfriend, Sex Crimes Detective Sue Gillis. Both plot threads suffer from gratuitous sensationalism: It's almost a given that the corruption scandal will threaten to drag down Detroit's mayor, and the serial murderer's identity is telegraphed from the start. Also, a few too many characters scramble about a landscape stretching from Detroit's dark inner city to the slush-filled exurbs where Coughlin attends AA meetings. But Sloan's dignified exploration of big-city politics and small-town evil, as well as his troubled management of the minutiae of his profession, leads to an unexpected insight: that depravity springs, more often than not, from distortions of human kindness. When not poking these burdensome plots forward, Coughlin skillfully portrays his good guys, such as saintly Father Chuck, and bad guys, including the soulless Deputy Police Chief Mark, as tragic effigies cut from the same broad, colorful cloth. Even when they're discomfiting, Coughlin's minor characters shine with a ruddy glow. Overplotted, with finely wrought characterizations and a practiced novelist's respect for the way in which unanticipated tragedy can bring on moments of quiet insight. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 612 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Pr (June 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786212438
• ISBN-13: 978-0786212439
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,850,400 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This is a complete false interpretation of my Father's work, July 21, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (St. Clair, MI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Judgment (Mass Market Paperback)

My Father William J. Coughlin, who died at the early age of 62, did not write this book. Although the publisher wants you to believe he wrote and finished this book on his death bed. This is completely untrue. The rights were sold by a family member to the publisher and another writer from the west coast was hired to write this. My father had a great idea regarding a story he wanted to write, but there is not one parargraph in this entire book that my Father wrote.

The publisher is just trying to sell you on the name and his success from his previous novels.

If you would like to read a couple of very good books William J. Coughlin did write: Try "Shadow of a Doubt" or : "Death Penalty"

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Slow, slow, slow, September 22, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Frederick, Maryland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Judgment (Mass Market Paperback)

I expected a true thriller. Scott Turow had said "Vintage Coughlin. Sharp, tight and full of suspense." I found this book to be none of these. It took forever to get started and once it got going the outcome was predictable and offered no suspense.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Coughlin is among the best, December 11, 2000

By 

"zwerver" (Alameda, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Judgment (Mass Market Paperback)

I have read a number of Coughlin's books. Some are better than others, but this one proves again, as do his other novels, that Coughlin is among the best of the lawyer-novel authors. His plots are always interesting and developed; his writing is very good; there is humor and sophistication to a degree that is rare in this genre.