Customer Reviews

Kill All the Lawyers (Solomon vs. Lord Novels)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

At 352 pages, Kill All the Lawyers is the shortest Solomon vs. Lord book, but like the other two, it is expertly paced. I don't think it could get more harrowing, with "Dr. Bill" Kreeger turning Steve's every good intention against him in a bid to tear apart his life with Victoria and Bobby.

One mark of great characters is the range of stories they allow you to tell, from lightly comedic to absolutely grave. I'm right there with them.

They met as opponents on a case, but became legal partners forming Solomon and Lord. Steve and Victoria are as different as two people can be. She is a blueblood; he is a peon. She strictly adheres to the rules; he bends and in some cases breaks the rules. Victoria has never been held in contempt; he holds the Guinness Book of Records for his judicial induced jail time.

Their world crumbles when psychiatrist Dr. William Kreuger is released from prison; he knows that Steve gave the prosecution the key evidence that convicted him. William admits that he is out to prove that Steve is no better a person than him, but will kill to make his point. He starts a diabolical plan to frame an innocent person whom Steve loves by placing another innocent victim in danger. If Steve fails to find the endangered missing person, Kreuger wins; if he does find that person Kreuger wins anyway.

The latest Solomon vs. Lord novel is a stupendous cat and mouse thriller with Steve being the rodent, his loved ones the cheese, and his adversary as sly and dangerous as Lector as Kreuger sets and changes the rules in this life and death game. Paul Levine infuses warmth in most of his cast (except for the villain) as he makes the case that ethical people when pushed over the edge will do what they can regardless of the self cost to save loved ones. This entry is on a par with Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum's series.

Harriet Klausner

Imagine awakening to a 300-pound marlin stuck in your front door. A sign of animosity perhaps? Steve Solomon thinks so, and he knows who it is from: Pop psychologist / radio host William Kreeger (a.k.a. "Dr. Bill") is the only client whose case Steve deliberately lost, ensuring Kreeger was sent to prison. Now, after six years, Dr. Bill is out and wants revenge.

Sound like Cape Fear? Well, that's not too surprising, given how author Paul Levine has shown himself to be a big John D. MacDonald fan. But it's just the beginning of Kill All the Lawyers, the third entry in Levine's bestselling romantic-comedy / legal-thriller series begun with Solomon vs. Lord and continued with The Deep Blue Alibi (a play on MacDonald's The Deep Blue Good-by).

Despite the source of its title (Henry VI, Part 2), Levine has no Shakespearean aspirations; all he wants is for his readers to have a good time and get hooked on his characters. After the first two novels, I was definitely hooked and very eager to get my copy of Kill All the Lawyers. Levine writes his characters with just the right amount of detail -- they're reportedly based on real people. This is all the better to project ourselves onto, and ideal for both comedy and pathos, of which there are both in plenteous amounts.

Solomon and Lord have their usual relationship / partnership issues: Are they so different that they're not right for each other? Steve won't "whore for banks and insurance companies" to upgrade the practice and rejects every property Victoria finds for them to live in. Is he holding her back? And who is the nubile young girl who sunbathes nude at Kreeger's home, yet who calls him "Uncle Bill"? And why is she naked every time Steve confronts her, Victoria would like to know.

Nephew Bobby gets more page-time in Kill All the Lawyers, as he finds out his mother Janice is out of jail and wants her son back, and he works on getting a girlfriend, local "Juban" girl Maria Munoz-Goldberg, by helping her with her homework -- school-related get-togethers that Bobby hopes will lead to extracurricular activities. Uncle Steve's guidance towards "purity as maturity" is not the kind of advice Bobby wants. In all of these cases, advice is sought from surprising sources.

Just like its predecessors, Kill All the Lawyers is rife with pop culture references. (I was shocked, shocked to find throwaway lines referencing both Casablanca and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.) Plus, there are twelve new "Solomon's Laws" that delight just as much as the ones that came before. I don't see how Levine can keep up this pace of productivity -- just thinking about it makes me tired. But when he does, I'll be right there to follow along with Steve, Victoria, Bobby, and the wonderful recurring cast of supporting characters as the loving conflict continues (along with the amusing cover art).

Though I've not really researched the topic, my guess is that the first mystery solving couple appeared in Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man. Subsequent to Nick and Nora Charles, there have been all sorts of mysteries featuring couples; probably the most popular one currently going is Faye Kellerman's series with Peter and Rina Decker. Kellerman should watch out, however: Paul Levine's series featuring Steve Solomon and Victoria Lord is good enough to give the Deckers a run for their money.

Kill All The Lawyers is the third in the "Solomon vs. Lord" series. In this novel, an old misdeed of Steve's has come back to haunt him. There was one time when he purposely lost a case; victory would have been simple, but he knew his client was guilty of multiple murders. Now, six years later (after serving a sentence for involuntary manslaughter), William Kreeger is out of prison and out for revenge.

Kreeger was a popular psychiatrist who was a darker version of Dr. Phil. Preaching a philosophy of selfishness (that even includes a very loose definition of justifiable homicide), he had parlayed his fame into big bucks and even after his prison time, he is able to have a radio show, which he uses to verbally attack Steve. Steve knows that Kreeger wants revenge, but even he can't guess at how sinister Kreeger's scheme will be, nor the depths of evil that Kreeger is capable of.

Meanwhile, Steve's lover and law partner Victoria is forced to question both Steve's ethics and his commitment to their relationship. Steve can be a great guy, but he's also a big-time flake, and their personalities definitely are opposites. Uptight Victoria needs to loosen up and ultra-casual Steve needs to be a little more dependable. As Steve watches his life unravel through Kreeger's manipulations, even Victoria begins to question Steve's approach to things.

One of the strengths of these books is that Levine realizes that - although these are books about a couple - he doesn't need to balance things equally between the two. Steve Solomon is the more interesting character (in some ways, an updated version of Levine's previous series character Jake Lassiter), so Levine writes more about him than Victoria. Although I felt that Levine fell off his stride a bit in his previous book (the good but not great Deep Blue Alibi), he is back to his full excellence here with a novel that is both suspenseful and quite funny and a good recommendation for fans of crime fiction.

After a promising start to the Solomon vs. Lord series, the 2nd installment was a big letdown. I'm glad to say that this newest entry improves upon the first book in the series, and delivers top-notch entertainment throughout the entire book. The humor and action are non-stop, and the characterizations of all the cast are enlightening without being overdone. I'm looking forward to reading more about Victoria Lord and Steve Solomon, and will eagerly snatch up the 4th installment whenever the publisher puts it out.

Thanks for the entertainment, Mr. Levine! The world could use some more laughs.

I was so looking forward to reading this, since the previous two in the series were enjoyable. Maybe it was just me this time, but the bad guy being a pedophile could not make me laugh - at all. Murder apparently doesn't bother me, but this vile act does. Also, the bickering between Solomon and Lord got a bit tired for me. The jokes and t-shirts are still worth it and maybe I just don't want to see Bobby grow up? If there is another in the series, I will for sure read it with fingers crossed.

Suspenseful, gripping, and sometimes downright funny (I especially love Steve Solomon's T-shirt-with-slogan collection). A great read in which the trial scenes, the investigation, and the protagonist's personal life couldn't be better intertwined.

I loved the first two books in the Solomon vs. Lord series, and absolutely love Steve Solomon's voice, so it is with much distress that I give this one a resounding "meh."

Feels like Paul Levine has phoned this series in just to please the publisher and is ready to move on from these characters. It just doesn't have the punch and pizazz of the first two in the series. If you've enjoyed the first two books ("Solomon vs Lord" and "Deep Blue Alibi"), you'll still enjoy Solomon's quick wit and disdain for following any rules that aren't his, but you'll immediately feel how tired the joke has become.

If you've never read any in this series, I suggest you skip this one and start at the beginning. You may come to this one eventually, but I wouldn't put it high on your to-do list.

The mismatched pair of Solomon and Lord is back for their third installment, this time dealing with a murderous ex-client of Steve's. Years ago when Steve was representing Dr. Bill Kreeger on a murder charge, he found evidence of just how cold and sociopathic the doctor was, and did something a little unethical to get him put away. Now Dr. Kreeger is a radio shrink, and keeps lambasting Steve on the air, when he isn't going out of the way to be Steve's best buddy. Steve's partner in law and life, Victoria Lord, is disgusted with Steve's lack of ethics and starts to worry she may be doing the wrong thing moving in with him. Plus, Steve's nephew Bobby is hitting puberty, and along with his interest in girls, Bobby also wants to rekindle a relationship with his drug-addled, abusive mother. While Steve does mental battle with Dr. Kreeger, he keeps getting arrested for assault--on the radio. Will he be able to hold it all together and put Dr. Kreeger back behind bars, or will he wind up there himself?

While it has its share of chuckles and great, quotable lines (I love Solomon's Laws), the main story about Steve's struggle with Dr. Kreeger takes a backseat to matters between Steve and Victoria. That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, except it's just a rehash of exactly what went on between Victoria and Steve in their last book, The Deep Blue Alibi. Victoria vacillating over whether being with Steve is the right thing or not wasn't all that entertaining the first time around, and this time it really made the book drag. Steve's fears over losing Bobby are getting a little stale, too. It was hard to enjoy the author's wit while hoping the story would move along already. Steve is not the typical male lead, behaving irresponsibly and sometimes childishly, but that's his charm. Somehow, this guy who does everything the wrong way manages to get it right. In this book, however, Steve seems to be at a loss as to what's going on around him, and it just doesn't fit with his character. When things work themselves out in the end, it's more dumb luck than any planning on Steve's part.

This is a series definitely worth reading...so far. However, the author really needs to move things along between Steve and Victoria. Surely there must be some way to make the differences in the way they operate into a good plot, without having them wonder if they belong together...again. There is a good cast of eclectic characters here, between Steve and Victoria, Steve's dad, Victoria's mother, and Bobby, not to mention the colorful side characters. It's a shame they keep rehashing the same story, but I'll read at least one more Solomon vs. Lord novel before I give up.

Steve Solomon is beset on a number of fronts in Kill All the Lawyers, the third installment in Paul Levine's series of legal whodunits. The most worrying of his concerns is that a certain Dr. William Kreeger--former client, celebrity psychiatrist, and sociopath--is out of prison and out to punish Steve for having lost his case. Meanwhile, Steve's father, disgraced judge Herbert T. Solomon, has gone Orthodox. Steve's sister Janice has found Jesus in rehab. And Steve's nephew Bobby has found the "harlot-in-training" down the street. To top it off, Victoria Lord, Steve's law partner and lover, is having doubts about their relationship. She spends most of this book agonizing over her decision to move in with him.

Steve has found a worthy nemesis in his Dr. Phil-ish celebridoc, whose motives remain a mystery for the better part of the book. Ultimately Kreeger's story merges nicely with those of Bobby and Bobby's mother--who has shown up in Miami with her own brand of menace, the threat of removing Bobby from Steve's care. But it's unfortunate that Victoria takes a back seat in this one. Her relationship with Steve is less interesting here than in previous outings. Too little is made of Herbert Solomon, too, who shows up now and again to spout some Yiddishism and then exits the story. On a brighter note, there is some nice development in the relationship between Steve and Victoria's mother Irene, a woman at once magisterial and tawdry--and with a penchant for naked display. We watched Irene cavort naked poolside in Deep Blue Alibi. This time around, alas, we are made to look on as she splays her legs for an intimate waxing. The scene falls short of funny and into the realm of the shudder-inducing.

Kill All the Lawyers seems a little stale in comparison with the first two books in the series, the characters often more cartoonish than not. I'm hoping the next outing finds them a bit more nuanced than they were allowed to be here.