Customer Reviews

Notorious

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Michele Martinez is making her name in legal thrillers, and she's doing it by offering rapid-fire action, legal expertise, and solid characters that grow with every novel. NOTORIOUS is her fourth book, and it once again features her New York City assistant district attorney heroine, Melanie Vargas.

Before turning to a life of crime-writing, Michele Martinez also worked as a prosecuting attorney in New York City. Her cases involved narcotics, smuggling, and murder. When she writes about something, she puts in a lot of authenticity.

Melanie Vargas is a hard-working single mother with an ex who was a lousy husband but a great father to her two year old daughter. As of this novel, she's currently estranged from her FBI boyfriend Dan O'Reilly. I enjoy reading about her, getting to know her co-workers and family, and watching her struggle with emotional entanglements with those people as well as her cases. She's cleanly written and feels like a real person.

NOTORIOUS begins with a bang - literally. After Melanie talks to Lester Poe, the famous defense attorney she's presently bumping heads with while attempting to put his rapper client away, Poe's car gets blown to bits. Poe dies with it, and Melanie is deeply affected by his death. In just that small scene, Martinez won me over to the pursuit of vengeance/justice throughout the rest of the novel. I believed in Poe as a character as well, he was a lot like other attorneys I've gotten to meet. And I totally understood Melanie's need to ensure the world still made sense and the good guys could still win.

The action picks up intensity as the police and FBI get involved. The scenes (and chapters) are short and brisk and made the read both easy and pleasant as the pages turned and turned. I was on the trail with Melanie, and there was no way either one of us was going to back down.

The tension didn't go away when Melanie returned home, either. New dilemmas came at her from family and her ex-lover. It seemed like the world had suddenly conspired to turn on Melanie and beat her down, and I cheered her on the whole way.

The legal action was cool and felt real, from the impromptu visit to judge's chambers and the legal brinksmanship regarding the rapper client, Atari Briggs, to the protection of the witness list and the prisoner who offers to turn state's evidence for a reduced sentence.

Martinez is equally at home with physical action as well. Her road trip to separate fact from fiction ends in disaster and in the death of a close friend. Those scenes ratchet up the suspense and ring true.

The mystery deepens as Melanie looks into Lester Poe's life, though. What she knew of him was only the surface and he has a lot of secrets, a lot of people who were willing to kill him. Evan Diamond, Poe's partner, steps in as Atari Briggs's lawyer and immediately seduces the newest addition to the district attorney's office. He's a good villain and I couldn't wait for Melanie to get the upper hand over him.

The ending is a thumping winner-take-all finish. Once I hit those final pages, I couldn't let go of the book until I'd finished. Martinez is an excellent writer and I can't wait to see more of Melanie's court cases. I hope she keeps a full docket.

This book was great, it was given to me by a co-worker, and I loved it. I had to get Michele Martinez's other books!

The fourth Melanie Vargas novel written by Michele Martinez definitely has the "thriller" aspect of the legal thriller genre. Melanie witnesses a fellow lawyer killed by a car bomb in the first chapter. And then it starts to get really suspenseful.

This is not my favorite of the novels in this series. In part because I expected more from Ms. Martinez after writing 3 books. This is the second time in 4 books that an insider leaked information to the bad guys that gets a witness killed. It seemed to me there must be a way to write a legal thriller without having a traitor spilling information. And also for the second time in 4 books, an infatuated woman turned a blind eye to the guy she wants being a bad guy.

Speaking of bad guys, the ones in this book were so evil they were almost cariactures. Sometimes a little spark of humanity inside the evil makes them all the more scary. I also wish there had been more courtroom/legal stuff in the book to balance out the racing around doing investigation. I had a friend who was an AUSA in the same office where Melanie Vargas works and I don't recall her running around to crime scenes and chasing suspects so much.

Though it isn't my favorite of this series, it was a page turner as I got caught up in all the suspense. If you are new to the Melanie Vargas series, I recommend that you read at least the one before this (better yet, start with the first one) because things that happened in earlier books will help you understand a lot of Melanie's reactions.

I'm a real Michele Martinez fan and thoroughly enjoyed her newest book
Notorious. I honestly thought that it should have her main character Melanie be a little more open to the idea of getting back with her old boyfriend. Thought she was WAY to harsh on him. Didn't feel real in that regard. But otherwise, a terrific plot and another good page turner!

From start to finish this book managed to keep me in suspense. Michelle Martinez is a fabulous mystery writer she has become one of my favorites.

Melanie Vargas makes her fourth appearance in this novel, this time as the chief assistant in her role as an U.S. Assistant Attorney in New York City. As its predecessors, Notorious is highly readable, well-plotted and swift reading. And it starts off with a bang--literally. Melanie is heading up the prosecution team in a murder trial, with a much-loved rap star as the defendant. While standing in front the court house in Foley Square after speaking with defense counsel, she witnesses his murder when he enters his car and it explodes.

No novel in the series is without all sorts of complications, and this one is no exception. To begin with, who is responsible for defense counsel's murder? The defendant? His new counsel, who was sort of the former attorney's partner? Then there is the question of intimidation (or even possible elimination) of witnesses. And, of course, no plot is complete without danger posed to the protagonist. Or without a potential love interest.

As in previous entries in the series, the basic cast of characters remains familiar, even Melanie's "former" love, an FBI agent she has "spurned." This leads to some "schmaltzy" reactions on Melanie's part which in a way reflect badly on her character and really have nothing to do with the plot; one assumes they are put there to humanize her. Nevertheless, the book is on a par with its predecessors, and is recommended.

Attorney Lester Poe meets with federal prosecutor Melanie Vargas at the Manhattan federal courthouse where he offers her a deal. His client legendary rapper Atari Briggs is on trial for a murder rap, but offers a DVD of big wig terrorist Gamal Abdullah using Atari's yacht to arrange a hundred million dollars a week Afghan heroin shipment to the CEOs of the major American illegal drug empires; their payments would go to support the Taliban.. Moments after their meeting and arranging a post trial date, a car bomb explodes killing Lester in front of Melanie's horrified eyes.

Single mom, Melanie knows the explosive image is imprinted on her brain forever especially the man with the "prop" dog who used a cell phone to ignite the bomb. However, by stepping up Melanie exposes herself as a witness that the assassin must take out. Sleazy Evan Diamond takes over the defense insisting he knows nothing about a deal to hand over Abdullah. Melanie knows that Diamond is pulling stunts, but is more worried that the killer will come for her daughter, her witnesses against Briggs, and ultimately her.

This exhilarating tale starts off with an explosive opening scene and never slows down whether the plot is in the courtroom (legal thriller) or involving the terrorists (investigative thriller). Melanie is terrific as is the support cast especially a female judge and Susan another prosecutor. Although the storyline is thin, fans will enjoy Melanie's efforts to keep her and others alive and should bring in new fans for Michele Martinez.

Harriet Klausner

I was disappointed. After waiting a year I think Martinez fell short by leaving out the sexual tension between her and Dan O'Reilly. The thing I loved about the prior books was how she was able to combine the elements of a fast paced crime thriller with an interesting steamy side story.

There are a multitude of reasons why you should read NOTORIOUS by Michele Martinez. A fast-paced experience? Check. Believable good guys? Check. Ruthless, though intriguing, bad guys? Check. Compelling plot? Check. Great cover? Well, that's not a reason to read it, but certainly a reason to buy it. And once you do so, you'll open it and read it all the way through --- top to bottom and beginning to end.

If you are unfamiliar with Martinez and her heroine, federal prosecutor Melanie Vargas, you need not fear jumping right into NOTORIOUS, the fourth book in her series. The author does an excellent job of making new readers feel welcome by backing up what has gone before with a sentence or two.

NOTORIOUS begins with a bang --- literally. Vargas is on the cusp of trying a high-profile murder case against Atari Briggs, a drug dealer turned rapper. Briggs is defended by Lester Poe, a world-famous criminal attorney. In an informal sidewalk meeting, Poe asks Vargas to delay the trial in exchange for testimony from his client concerning a notorious terrorist who is running drugs into the United States. Poe also hints at continuing --- on a social basis --- his relationship with her after the trial is over. She is interested in both propositions.

Her happiness, however, is cut short seconds later when Poe is murdered before her eyes. Vargas is determined to see Po's killer brought to justice, but as a potential witness, she is boxed off of the case by her own office. Still assigned to prosecute Briggs, Vargas finds that Briggs's new counsel, Evan Diamond, is less pleasant to deal with. Diamond has a bad reputation personally and professionally, and while he shared office space with Poe, the two attorneys were known not to get along. To make matters worse, Diamond denies that Briggs has any information for the prosecution or ever wanted any sort of a deal.

When her key witness is attacked, Vargas desperately seeks other testimony to convict Briggs. Her quest takes her to Las Vegas and a chance meeting with an old flame, but it ends in tragedy --- one that has its etiology in her own office. Racing against time, Vargas sets a trap that she hopes will catch a conviction, little knowing that her own life will be in danger before everything is resolved.

Martinez is an absolute master of infusing her novels with an over-the-shoulder look at office politics at the federal level, and she outdoes herself in NOTORIOUS. It is the ultimate irony that a government bureaucracy, particularly one involved in law enforcement, is often hindered in pursuing its mission as much from within as without. Intra- and inter-agency turf wars, support staff with influence out of proportion to rank, and supervisors out of touch with the job (if they ever were in touch to begin with) are but a few of the elements comprising the 10-ton bureaucratic millstone that Martinez describes so well.

Add believable characters, a perfectly paced plot and a satisfying, if ironic, ending, and you have another winner from an author who has quickly acquired a reputation in the thriller field for consistent excellence.

This is a good and enjoyable read. A female lawyer ready to prosecute a man finds out that the man may have ties to a fugitive. The man is blown up right in front of her. She has a history with the man and realizes that she does not really know him well. She determines to pursue his death and therein lies the rest of the story.

J. Robert Ewbank author "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'"