No Lesser Plea [Paperback]

Robert K. Tanenbaum (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Signet Books (1994)
• ASIN: B000PAYWHM
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,927,131 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert K. Tanenbaum is one of the country's most successful trial lawyers -- he has never lost a felony case. He has been homicide bureau chief for the New York District Attorney's Office and deputy chief counsel to the congressional committee investigations into the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Most recently, he has taught Advanced Criminal Procedure atthe University of California at Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law. His previous works include the novels Escape, Malice, Fury, Hoax, Resolved, Enemy Within, and Absolute Rage and two true-crime books, The Piano Teacher: The True Story of a Psychotic Killer and Badge of the Assassin.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Exceptional Beginning to a Fascinating Series, August 20, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: No Lesser Plea (Signet) (Paperback)

I read this book when it first came out and was immensely impressed. I re-read this book six years ago when I belatedly realized that RKT had concocted a series instead of a stand-alone book. I was as impressed with the book the second (and even the third) time around as I was the first. I have since rushed to the store each year for the latest installment of the Karp-Ciampi chronicles and have not been disappointed.
No Lesser Plea is a well-plotted legal thriller with interesting bad guys, witty dialogue, believable legal antics, and fascinating main characters. If you a reader of this genre and you have no discovered RKT give this book a try.
There are several things I greatly admire in this series of books that does not come across by reading the first one. The most important thing is the development of the relationship between Butch & Marlene (and their family and hangers-on) over the course of the series. These characters become real people (rather more witty and articulate than the ordinary person) who have problems, disagreements, and day-to-day lives outside the pivotal legal issue being presented in the book. A second thing I like about the series is the development of current legal issues through the narrative format. By having Butch and Marlene on different sides of a question, the reader is exposed to moral and legal complexities of today's society. The last thing that I love about these books is their humor. There is at least one point in every book that sends me into gales of laughter. This is usually a bit of witty dialogue between Butch/Marlene and/or their children, but it also can be an exceptionally apt, pithy description of a situation or person. Anyway, this is one of the most alive series of books I have read and I would love to meet these characters (but not live near them since there does seem to be an inordinate amount of gunplay involved in their neighborhood).

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book started the series off., August 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: No Lesser Plea (Signet) (Paperback)

This is the first book by Tanenbaum which features "Butch" Karp. This book was really well plotted. The characters are somewhat real. I simply could not put this book down! What a great story it holds.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A legal thriller that gets lost in its own antics, March 27, 2006

By 

DWD "DWD's Reviews" (Indianapolis, IN) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: No Lesser Plea (Signet) (Paperback)

Robert K. Tannenbaum has created a well-regarded series of legal thrillers set in New York City and featuring D.A. Roger 'Butch' Karp. I have read others in this series. This one is the first and is set from 1970-1973.

The main legal focus of the book and the source of the title is the case of Mandeville Louis, a user of men and women who masterminds a murderous liquor store heist and causes his get away driver to die from an overdose. Louis has a plan to avoid punishment by faking to be mentally ill and eventually plea bargain his way to freedom based on time served in a mental institution rather than a harsher penal institution (shades of 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest').

Butch Karp sniffs out the true legal motives of Louis and writes in magic marker on the case file 'No Lesser Plea' just in case it comes up for review again and he is not informed.

The legal story is quite good but Tannenbaum's story bogs down in the antics of the District Attorney's office (it reminds me of the movie M*A*S*H but without the excuse of an insane war to push the characters to the edge of sanity). Butch's friend Guma is insufferable (he drags pistols out of the evidence room to play cops and robbers and then promptly loses some of them, he sets of a C-4 charge in a reflection pool during an office garden party, has sex on his office desk and so on) and the whole office politics scene is too hurried. If Tannenbaum had paced himself a bit these antics would have been more tolerable. As they are presented, they distract from the legal thriller at hand.

Final Grade: C