From Publishers Weekly
It's not surprising that Yale-educated, New York-based, legal-aid lawyer/author Heilbrun gets the details right in this thriller featuring Ivy League educated, New York legal-aid public defender Arch Gold. What's refreshing in a field crowded with John Grisham imitators is that Heilbrun also turns in an intriguing, fast-paced, well-written courtroom mystery with an original lead character. Ten years ago, Arch Gold gave up his job as a high-powered business attorney (and also gave up his high-powered business attorney wife) to settle into the life of a poorly paid, hard-working, sometimes lonely but professionally satisfied public defender. When he draws the media-hot case of Damon Tucker, a kid from Harlem accused of murdering beautiful businesswoman Charlotte King, he finds himself defending not only a client he thinks is innocent, but also arguing the first death penalty case in New York in 50 years. Arch, at Damon's insistence, looks into the dead woman's background to see if her murder might be more than the simple mugging-gone-bad that prosecutors and the police claim. Arch finds that Charlotte was sleeping with her boss, James L. Yates, head of Yates Associates, the largest PI firm in the world. Remembering his bookie father's words of advice, "sometimes you have to break the rules to do the right thing," he commits a couple of felonies to get the goods on sleazebag Yates. When all else fails, Arch rallies an oddball contingent of former clients-a stripper, a stick-up man and a bookie-to ensure that justice prevails, leaving readers satisfied and eager for another outing.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School--With the opening paragraph, court-appointed attorney Arch Gold draws readers quickly and inexorably into the story of a young black man taken into custody in Manhattan. Damon Tucker is an 18-year-old City College student and video-store clerk charged with the murder of a white woman in what appears to be a street robbery gone bad. It's clear to readers that the teen is innocent, but he is his own worst enemy, unable to control his anger and unwilling to follow his attorney's advice. His case becomes a death penalty cause célèbre and, as it wends its way through the courts, Heilbrun sheds light at each turn. Legal precedents, city politics, and ethical issues, as well as the personalities and ambitions of police, jurors, attorneys, and judges, all combine to determine Damon's fate. Gold, who is the son of a bookie and now a "legit" public defender, stands with one foot on each side of the law; when he feels it's necessary, he can step over it. Here, the novel takes on the aspect of a more conventional mystery, as Gold fights to expose the real killer. He has the help of a number of colorful characters, including grateful ex-clients and an elderly friend of his father. This well-written tale is fast moving, compelling, and thought-provoking, and readers will be left hoping that the noir-voiced Arch Gold will return to relate more of his cases in future novels.
--Christine C. Menefee, Fairfax County Public Library, VA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
