Customer Reviews

Marked Man

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First let me say that I am a Victor Carl fan. That said, although very readable, this is not the best of the Carl books. I'm sorry but the new investigator just isn't as good as the old one. As usual, Victor bumbles his way through solving the crime but the characters just don't seem as realistic as Lashner usually delivers

William Lashner is a no holds barred writer, his prose is smart, upbeat, and, at times, uproariously funny. Marked Man is Lashner at his best, and most impressive.

He doesn't wait to reel you in, but opens with a grabber: "It must have been a hell of a night. One of those long, dangerous nights, where the world shifts and doors open and you give yourself over to your more perilous instincts..."

These are the words of Victor Carl, a Philadelphia lawyer. He can't remember the night but his suit is in shreds, his socks are long gone, and he's sporting a new tatoo - a heart inscribed "Chantal Adair."

Dare you to put this book down - it's impossible. Carl will admit his life is in a mess, and he really needs to find Chantal - whoever or whatever she is.

However, that's got to take second place to fulfilling a dying woman's wish - she wants to see her ex-con son one more time before she dies. Not an easy task as said son is in hiding after a 15-year-old art theft.

However, son is willing to barter a missing Monet and Rembrandt, so he says, in order to see his mother. All Carl has to do is arrange this trade-off. Meanwhile, who is Chantal and what is she to Carl? If he ever gets his life straightened out, reading about him will be less interesting. He's certainly not the most dedicated or ethical of attorneys but he is definitely one of the most entertaining.

Enjoy!

- Gail Cooke

I probably should not reveal a trade secret here, but there are more Victor Carls practicing law than there are Perry Masons. The creation of William Lashner, Victor Carl is a rumpled knight whose considerable legal acumen is matched neither by his office management skills nor his personal habits. MARKED MAN, the sixth installment in the Carl series, fully supports Lashner's ongoing argument that a dramatic novel can be deep, funny, tragic and exciting without sacrificing any of those qualities to another.

In MARKED MAN, Carl wakes up after a night of drinking and discovers that he has a tattoo on his chest. It's not like such an occurrence is totally unheard of; it's just that the tattoo is a name he does not recognize --- Chantal Adair. Intrigued, he wants to find this mystery woman and begins nosing around a bit; the more he finds out, the more important it becomes to track her down.

Meanwhile, Carl is retained to help an elderly woman on her deathbed locate her son, who has been missing for nearly 30 years. Finding him is easy enough, but he has good reason for wanting to stay hidden. Long ago he committed a crime, but is still facing fallout from it --- not only locally, but also from the FBI and by some unknown folks who aren't as restrained and polite as the Feds.

All of this would be more than enough for Carl's plate, but he has additional problems. Beth Derringer is having a life crisis that may bring an end to their law firm. She also has a client with a rough past who is seeking joint custody of her daughter. What Lashner accordingly sets up, in a subtle and brilliant manner, are three separate plotlines, two of which converge and all of which ultimately will share a common theme with different yet bittersweet endings. Carl is a bit of a smart aleck, and some of his remarks are extremely funny --- at one point I was phoning my wife to read a couple of them to her at the office. But MARKED MAN is by no means a comedic novel; there are few winners here.

Lashner sustains and accelerates the momentum of a series that only recently has received the popular acclaim it has deserved from its inception. Its ultimate conclusion marks a turning point of sorts, one that will have readers wondering what will come next. The only certainty is that no one will be disappointed. Highly recommended.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

In Philadelphia defense attorney Victor Carl wakes up to a four poster hangover caused by imbibing too much alcohol the night before. Not only does he remember little of most of the evening, Victor is stunned to find a tattoo of a heart on his chest with the name of someone called Chantal Adair inside it. He thinks never again as he has no idea who is Chantal or when did he get the tattoo.

As he remains bewildered and befuddled, he finds connections between the mysterious Chantal Adair, a client with a Rembrandt and an elderly woman asking Carl's father for a favor. Victor works his case diligently as long as it does not interfere with his search for what happened on the lost evening, more info on Chantal, and especially not interfering with his girl watching skills. However as haunting that night is with his total lack of recall, the evening will soon come back in full force to haunt him.

This interesting character driven thriller stars a somewhat hedonistic man who knows he went on too much of a bender, but as he tries to learn what happened that led to the tattoo, he finds himself instead in an even more complex fiasco. Readers will appreciate this cleverly designed tale because of Victor as he goes from severe hangover to bewildered soul to shocked jock to finally in trouble just because he wants to connect the dots. No one who reads this fine novel will ever overindulge as William Lashner provides a strong suspense story.

Harriet Klausner

Ah, finally! We're back to the Victor Carl we know and love. I so enjoyed reading this book, especially after the prior book in the series that just didn't seem up to par. I had almost given up buying William Lashner in hardback, until this book came out.
I won't give out any spoilers, but it's nice that the situation with his partner is finally resolved. (See, no spoiler - I don't tell HOW it's resolved.) That was dragging on a bit.
Anyway, definite thumbs up on this one!

After last year's "Falls the Shadow", which I thought sub par, William Lashner is back in top form with "Marked Man", a thoughtful and intelligent mystery of a decades-past stolen Rembrandt masterpiece and the disappearance of a six-year old girl. Self-depreciating lawyer Victor Carl is back, this time coming to the aid of an aging Greek crone who enlists Carl's help to bring her fugitive son, Charlie, a small time thug on the lam, back to her deathbed. After a night of drunken debauchery, Carl awakes with not only a killer hangover, but also "Chantal Adair" expertly tattooed above his right nipple. Reason enough to quit drinking.

What follows is classic Lashner: a twisted plot as riveting as it is convoluted, a tripped-out cast, settings rich in grit, grime, with an extra dose of class envy, and of course the "yous guys" Philly dialect that the author can claim as all his own. Unlike the more standard pop fiction mystery/thriller, Lashner's Carl is unique as the ordinary street lawyer, a typically down-on-his-luck barrister barely tolerated by the cops and courts, an all-too-human hero who while continually on the brink of succumbing to avarice manages to rise to the occasion and re-find his morale compass.

Like the good mystery that this is, seemingly unrelated events merge thread by thread, sucking the reader down an inescapable path that takes some unexpected turns before reaching a satisfying end. Darkly humorous and thoroughly entertaining, it's good to see both Lashner and Carl back. A top pick for this summer's beaches and lakesides.

Although John Grisham may be the most prominent, there are a number of other lawyer-turned-authors out there. Some are better than others, and among the best is William Lashner with his series of Victor Carl books. Carl is one of those lawyers who would be willing to be absolutely materialistic and ethically flexible, but his integrity always get in the way, leaving him perpetually broke.

In Marked Man, the sixth book featuring Carl, who this time starts the novel hung over and with no memory of the previous evening. This would be bad enough, but he has a lasting memento of his wild night: a tattoo on his chest with the name Chantal Adair. Unfortunately, he has no idea who Chantal is.

Meanwhile, he does have his legal work, principally dealing with Charlie Kalakos, a crook who wants to come in from the cold, and in the process, turn in a Rembrandt painting he had stolen. Carl tries to arrange a witness relocation package, but finds there a number of people who'd prefer Charlie stay missing, most significantly, his ex-partners-in-crime.

In a way, this is Lashner's version of the Maltese Falcon, with the painting taking the place of the black bird...or is it Chantal who is the treasure everyone is seeking? (The only Chantal that Carl can track down is a little girl who disappeared decades ago. Does it somehow link to Kalakos?) There is even a Joel Cairo-sort, an eccentric black market art dealer named Lavender Hill. But, of course, the parallels to Hammett's novel are limited, as Marked Man is also its own unique story.

At the heart of the story, as always, is Victor Carl, whose narrative keeps things entertaining at all times. In this book, he has to not only deal with business-related dangers, but also his own personal crises, as he begins to doubt if he will ever achieve success and as his partnership with fellow lawyer Beth Derringer undergoes problems. If you enjoy suspense fiction - especially involving the world of lawyers - William Lashner in general and Marked Man specifically, are highly recommended.

I was eagerly anticipating this latest book in Lashner's series about Lawyer Victor Carl. I wasn't disappointed. Those of you who have not yet met Victor Carl need to get acquainted with him. He is rather a "smart mouth", and that trait gets him in some trouble. In this book, Carl wakes up one morning from a night of drinking to find the words "Chantal Adair" freshly tattooed on his chest. He has no idea how he got there nor any idea to whom the name belongs . His search to solve this mystery, along with a case that he is investigating about a gang which stole a Rembrandt many years ago, are the basis for this book. The two plots turn out to be closely related, and of course Victor solves them both. The book is also great fun, with its quirky characters and Carl's irreverent comments.

After a couple disappointing efforts, William Lashner seems to be at the top of his game in Marked Man. Lashner exhibits shades of Ross MacDonald as he expertly "unties the knot" in a complex mystery. The book has an intricate plot and is well paced. The story line never lags and the questions Victor Carl faces are compelling. This book was my reward for sticking with Lashner.

This is the first William Lashner book I've read and I found it slow going during the first third as the author seemed to take a very long time to repeat the mystery of the tattoo and to set the scene. By the second half, it moved and the last quarter had all the denouments, yes, that is plural, that a reader could possibly want.
I liked the way the author used what was really happening in Philadelphia at that time - the bug in the Mayor's office, the federal investigation of the pay or play schemes, the competition between city and fed prosecutors to find corruption, the proposed move of the Barnes Foundation (here thinly disguised as the Randolph Trust) - as well as actual locations such as the Melrose Diner and Fishtown. While those added to the story, I have to say that the dialogue was not particularly believable and the motivation (from Victor's sex life to Beth's house hunting) were in several cases not remotely true to life. Nevertheless, the double and triple crosses toward the end really did provide an absorbing read.