Customer Reviews

In the Shadow of the Law: A Novel

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2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Though it is an intricately plotted and very exciting story (I repeatedly found myself paging ahead to find out what happened next), what really struck me about this novel is how beautifully written it is. Roosevelt describes the emotional life of his characters almost in negative space, creating the contours of their thoughts and lives by what is going on around them. He uses a light brush, never maudlin, and yet the novel is deeply touching. It's also quite funny in places, and I found myself laughing out loud several times. Though I'm not a lawyer, I also found the concepts of the law as it is practiced and how it is imagined by its practitioners to be very insightful and absorbing. Roosevelt seems to both love the law and despair of it, as he does with the people he has created. I thought this was a wonderful book.

If "In the Shadow of the Law" is to be categorized as a legal thriller, emphasis must be added to the word "legal." This is not a book for those seeking a light-hearted romp through the legal justice system or a romanticized view of the high-powered attorney lifestyle. Rather, it's a scathing portrayal of the pressures and absurdities that confront the legions of young associates who are forced to bill like the wind to pay back their law school loans through indentured servitude in today's mega-firms as well as the mid-life crises engulfing the partners who have sacrificed their personal lives in pursuit of ever-loftier partnership profits.

That's not to say that this novel isn't an entertaining read. Told from the perspective of half a dozen comically-stereotypical attorneys in a Washington law firm who are involved in a prono bono death penalty case and defense of a mass tort suit, Roosevelt hooks you by building a foreboding sense of suspense in the early chapters and then keeps you guessing with some nifty plot twists in the later stages.

But unless you have a legal background, you may not appreciate the real genius of this book. As the title aptly conveys, the characters and plot of this novel are ultimately overshadowed by the law itself, which serves in equal shrift as villain and protagonist. The law operates as the villain in the hands of the greedy partners who have abandoned the role of lawyer as counselor in favor of lawyer as crass profiteer and mouthpiece for unsavory clients. Yet the law also acts as the protagonist when wielded by Mark and Katja, two neophyte associates who have still retained their youthful ideals and sense of justice. And, most interesting of all for this reader, the complex and mysterious personality of the law is beautifully depicted through the internal struggle of ex-Supreme Court clerk Walker Eliot who tries in vain to reconcile the Platonic version of legal precedent dispensed by the appellate courts with law as sullied by the mere mortals wrestling with bad facts in the lower courts. Somehow, though, I can imagine Professor Roosevelt exhorting his law students to be prepared to walk the muddy path of the law spurned by Eliot.

-Kevin Joseph, author of "The Champion Maker"

As previous reviewers have noted, John Grisham this is not. There are a lot more subtleties and intricacies involved in the reading of "In the Shadow of the Law"; if you do not have the patience to appreciate these subtleties and are merely looking to figure out "whodunnit", then you are overlooking one of the more unique aspects of this novel. Mr. Roosevelt's sense of humor is exquisitely astute and laugh-out-loud enjoyable. But you might miss it if you're simply looking for the next big plot development. His meticulous appreciation for "The Law" as entity, profession, and dogma give his novel a depth lacking in most legal thrillers. Yes, this novel is probably biased towards the legal community. But as a layperson, I honestly enjoyed it thoroughly and went so far as to buy it for two equally lay friends. I look forward to reading future works by Mr. Roosevelt.

Like LeCarre, Roosevelt willfully adopts all the conventions of his genre--the young associate at the powerful corporate law firm who comes to suspect his employer's complicity in a deadly crime--but subverts them by stripping away their sensationalism. You don't expect to see George Smiley parachute onto a ski slope in a tuxedo with his submachine gun blazing, and, while there's menace aplenty and even some violence in In the Shadow of the Law, neither do you expect to see Roosevelt's protagonist escape gun-toting thugs by executing an uneven-bar routine on the plumbing in The Firm's basement. (Indeed, Roosevelt's Mark Clayton doesn't even seem to be a very good lawyer.) Paradoxically, however, in In the Shadow of the Law, as in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, the unimistakable air of authenticity makes an intricate plot much more riveting than it would be if it were tarted up with implausible cliches.

But Roosevelt also has qualities that LeCarre didn't develop until later--if ever. One is a graceful, evocative, expressive writing style. The other is the intellectual maturity to tackle a big theme. LeCarre's big theme was uncertainty and moral compromise in the Great Game. Roosevelt's is the law: how it works, what it means, and how it can be used to both just and unjust ends. And while there is some cynicism in his treatment of the mercenary motives of corporate attorneys, his novel is also animated by a deep understanding of and respect for the law, and the conviction that it can be a means to a greater good. A brilliant debut.

"In the Shadow of the Law," Kermit Roosevelt's debut novel, is a caustic indictment of corporate lawyers who sacrifice their souls on the altars of money and power. The author is a graduate of Yale Law, he has clerked for a Supreme Court Justice, and he is an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. All of these experiences are woven into Roosevelt's hard-hitting story about the ways in which wealthy and successful corporate lawyers handle their personal and professional problems.

The firm of Morgan Siler is based in Washington, D. C., and its lawyers represent multibillion-dollar corporations. Peter Morgan, the senior partner, has steered his late father's firm into such lucrative areas as bankruptcy and mergers. Morgan is arrogant, self-centered, and ruthless, qualities that are highly prized in Morgan Siler's employees. However, one associate, Mark Clayton, is a recent law school graduate who has not yet been corrupted by the system. He inherits a troubling pro bono death penalty case that proves to be a trial by fire. Morgan Siler is also defending a Texas company, Hubble Chemical, against a class action suit stemming from a fatal fire at a chemical plant where toxic chemicals were stored.

Roosevelt's cast of characters is large and varied. Besides the aforementioned Clayton and Morgan, other members of the firm are Walker Eliot, a brilliant third year associate who loves the law more in theory than in practice, Katja Phillips, a beautiful young idealist who is sickened by her colleagues' dirty tricks, and Ryan Grady, who would rather chase women than file briefs.

"In the Shadow of the Law" gets high marks for its detailed depiction of the inner workings of a high-octane law firm. Roosevelt realistically describes the pressures that corporate lawyers face. Some of the members of Morgan Siler suffer from insomnia, fatigue, and stress-related ailments. They often turn to alcohol to unwind, and because of their long hours at work, they have difficulty sustaining long-term personal relationships. Divorce is more the norm than the exception.

On the down side, this novel is a bit too long and repetitious; Roosevelt hammers home his theme about the immorality of corporate lawyers again and again. In addition, the passages that deal with arcane case law may be difficult for the average reader to understand. Roosevelt's writing is, at times, pretentious. He is fond of using ten-dollar words such as "ineluctable," "simulacrum," and "carapace." Finally, Roosevelt spends too much time recording the internal thoughts of his characters, who endlessly and tediously take stock of their narcissistic lives.

Overall, however, "In the Shadow of the Law" is an intelligent, ambitious, satirical, and frightening look at how people who are sworn to uphold the law rationalize their perversion of the law. A villain named Dick the Butcher in Shakespeare's "Henry VI, Part Two" said that "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." After reading this scathing first novel by a promising young writer, one can almost sympathize with Dick's harsh words about the legal profession.

I loved this book. I've read a lot of legal thrillers, and in the past few years there have been a lot of academic types churning out their first novels (for example, The Rule of Four, Emperor of Ocean Park, The Dante Club), so I thought I had a pretty good sense of what to expect from this book. But it far exceeded my expectations.

First of all, it did not read like a first novel. With some of the recent first-novel-thrillers, I got the sense that the authors thought, hey, I'm smart, I'm erudite, I can write a trashy book--how hard can it be? It's trash, after all. But writing a book is hard, and takes practice, and so there are good bad books (The Da Vinci Code) and bad bad books. And, predictably, those first novels read like the work of tyros. In contrast, it's clear that Roosevelt has written fiction before. He knows his way around a sentence, and a plot. I couldn't hear the gears turning when I read Roosevelt's book.

Second, it wasn't trashy. (I mean that in a good way.) There were actual characters, who actually, you know, developed. Even though they were all "types," they also came alive as people for me. In fact, the plot of the book seemed secondary to Roosevelt's observations and skillful but understated writing.

Finally, Roosevelt has ideas about the law that go beyond the standard "class actions can punish big companies" or "big firms are sleazy" themes of other legal thrillers. He seems to have complicated, ambivalent views of legal ethics, for example.

In short, this book is definitely worth reading.

Roosevelt's "In the Shadow of the Law" did something I'd considered impossible: I actually sympathized for a fictional group of young, urban, professionals. If it can get any worse than that, they were lawyers. The characters' shockingly realistic personalities, neuroses, and mannerisms lead me to believe that Roosevelt is either an extremely keen observer of both self and peer, or possibly a genius slipping into both schizophrenia and multiple-personality disorder. Does it matter?

I would believe this work to be enjoyed most by fans of Joyce, Tolkein, or Herbert; it's language and character development both allow the reader a seamless transition into a world foreign to most, a world found only 'in the shadow of law.'

Entertainment Weekly put this book on its "Must List," praising its "complex and believable characters." The plot is interesting, but what's distinctive is the characters and the different views they have of the law. Well worth reading.

All set for a thriller of a courtroom novel where the brilliant defense attorney defends a man against an unjust charge of murder, and where a surprise witness enters the scene in the final 20 pages? I'd suggest you look elsewhere. How about this case in In The Shadow Of The Law? Our hard working lawyers take on a case that involves the securitization of assets, a fiduciary duty suit, and some convertible stock.

This is a novel that studies the character of the law, and the characters of lawyers in a very large law firm. A lawyer in the book reflects on the Penn law school motto: "Laws without morals are useless." The book goes on to prove that such is perhaps not the case. One lawyer reflects that we become what we choose to become. He then wonders about what he has become in the last 25 years. A man without a soul perhaps? Someone who has no life other than the firm? Arriving early to work one associate looks up at the wall of glass which is the firm's headquarters and sees faint forms moving about like insects pushing up against the glass.

The preceding paragraph pretty much sums up the author's philosophy. Brief snippets of actual cases appear from time to time, but a lot of the book is taken up with the musings of those insects trapped behind the glass. There is one case thread that wanders through the book that deals with a rather hopeless(?) pro bono case of appealing the death sentence of a murderer, but the rest of the cases deal with civil litigation such as defending a client whose manufacturing plant blew up killing several employees.

I enjoyed this book first of all because it is uniquely different from other novels involving the law. It is about the lawyers, and the profession that they have chosen. Good stuff, stuff that would make anyone think twice about becoming a lawyer. It's also a very well written novel, a true literary work. As for the dull sounding litigation that takes place, well you really don't have to understand everything about involuntary stock transfers to truly enjoy this work of art.

Calling this book a legal thriller, while accurate, sells it short. In the Shadow of the Law is a very good novel: it has fully developed and believable characters, and a great plot that will keep you turning the pages. The end it's a little too Hollywood (false identities included), which is the only reason I don't give it five stars, but this is a very enjoyable reading experience.