True Justice [Abridged, Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

Robert K. Tanenbaum (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2002

New York Times bestselling author Robert K. Tanenbaum has more than seven million copies of his finely crafted and morally complex novels in print. In True Justice, he reaches new heights with a compellingly authentic and penetrating story pulled right form today's most controversial headlines.

For Butch Karp, chief assistant district attorney for New York County, the nightmare begins when a shocking act of negligence results in homicide. Goaded by the media's sensational publicity, the public is screaming for blood, and Karp's boss, D.A. Jack Keegan, is listening. He has ordered the prosecution of a fifteen-year-old for murder, intent on making a very public example of the girl. A Hispanic from a poor neighborhood, she's an easy mark for big-city bureaucracy and bigotry. It is Butch Karp's unpleasant job to see that the prosecution gives the public what it wants: a quick and thorough administration of hard-line justice.

Complicating matters further is Butch's wife, Marlene Ciampi, a private investigator who has decided to return to practicing law. Her first case takes her a few hundred miles south to a small Delaware town, where an equally unspeakable tragedy has taken place. Marlene, however, has the unenviable task of taking on a politically ambitious local prosecutor who is pressing to charge a suburban teenager with capital murder.

With Butch and Marlene squaring off on opposite sides of an increasingly incendiary national debate, things couldn't get any more tense...until a shocking turn of events puts their daughter, Lucy, at the center of a horrifying crime. Suddenly, everything they believe in is challenged, and they are drawn into a maelstrom of big-city politics and small-town values, where justice is sacrificed to the twin gods of public perception and expediency -- and Karp must struggle to salvage his self-respect, his career, and his life.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

District Attorney Butch Karp and his pistol-packing wife Marlene Ciampi, the liveliest crime-fighting couple in New York, are back in True Justice. The first set of infanticides happen on Butch's watch: a wave of gruesome incidents in which newborns are killed or abandoned by their indigent teenage mothers. The second, Marlene's case, is straight out of the headlines: a middle-class college girl and her boyfriend are indicted for first-degree murder in the death of their baby after a concealed pregnancy.

The most interesting story belongs to Lucy, Butch and Marlene's teenage daughter, an incisively brilliant and complex young woman who deserves her own novel. Lucy's best friend's parents seem to have been murdered by an African furniture restorer of whose guilt Lucy is unconvinced. The real solution to the mystery of who killed the Maxwells is telegraphed well in advance, but all the crimes give Butch, Marlene, their colleagues in criminal justice, and even Lucy a chance to weigh in on the law's fault lines and the ironies implicit in what passes for justice in America. But it's Lucy's spiritual quest that provokes the book's most unusual and involving drama. Lucy's devout Catholic faith, like her prodigious talent for language (she can speak 14, but give her five days in a foreign country and that'll be 15, thank you), is a mystery to Butch, a lapsed Jew, and Marlene, who has trouble squaring her own faith with the violence that attends her job. When a Jesuit priest tries to explain it in the following passage, Butch is nonplused:

"Lucy takes her spiritual responsibilities very seriously. And of course, in the current age, when people think there's no such thing as spiritual responsibility, she has nothing to compare herself to, and so she may get herself painted into a corner."

"I'm not sure I follow," said Karp.

"Oh, I mean, two or three hundred years ago, a girl with her talents and predilections would have been in an order, with hourly guidance and a rule to follow. Think of Mickey Mantle being born in, say, Romania in 1830. The talent's there, but there's no cultural space for it."

This is a keenly intelligent book, many cuts above the usual courtroom procedural. The most interesting things happen outside the courtroom--the moral dilemmas, the political choices, the bonds between parents and daughter. The pacing is as swift as the dialogue, the characters are piercingly illuminated, and the philosophical jousting is worth a room full of Jesuits. This reader is heading straight for Tanenbaum's backlist and eagerly anticipating another novel with Lucy as the star. --Jane Adams --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

A rash of baby killings positions a pair of married lawyers on opposite sides of the moral and legal fence in the latest multifaceted installment of this legal-thriller series (after Act of Revenge). Tanenbaum brings back assistant district attorney Butch Karp and feisty spouse Marlene Ciampi when three infanticides involving young unwed mothers are discovered in New York City. City politics and legal circumstances force Karp to prosecute a young Hispanic girl who appears to be the most culpable of the three. While Karp is embroiled in his case, lawyer Ciampi is busy with her own challengeAprotecting battered women from violent ex-husbands. When she is forced to shoot a man after he guns down his wife and then aims the weapon at his own daughter, Ciampi realizes she has had enough and decides to retire. Shortly afterward, however, a lawyer friend convinces her to represent a young woman in Delaware who is accused of killing her newborn baby. Contrived though the plot may be, it provides an apt vehicle for Tanenbaum to dissect the legal and moral mechanisms of the two cases, while exploring their effects on his protagonists' professional and personal lives. An intriguing subplot involves the couple's deeply religious daughter, Lucy, a linguistic prodigy. When the parents of her wealthy friend Caitlin are killed in cold blood, Lucy's instincts help identify the murderer. The resolution of Ciampi's case seems a bit na?ve and optimistic, but Tanenbaum rises above the inherent manipulation in the story lines with his usual combination of intelligent, wry dialogue, a well-designed maze of political and moral traps, and the charming and incendiary chemistry between Karp and Ciampi. For those who prefer their legal thrillers with plenty of spice and a high IQ, Tanenbaum remains an essential addiction. (Aug.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio; Abridged edition (September 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743527593
• ISBN-13: 978-0743527590
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 4.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,171,635 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

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Better than ever, July 26, 2000

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: True Justice (Hardcover)

The three infant deaths in Manhattan in a week all share in common that an outsider found the abandoned corpse of an unwed mother. By the third death, the media leads a public frenzy seeking to lynch someone for the rash of infanticides. The police catch all three "monster moms". They turn out to be a fourteen year old African-American who thought she had a stomach ache, a sixteen year old Puerto Rican who claimed the child was caused by rape, and a white adult who seemed retarded. The obvious target of the New York County DA is sixteen year old Lourdes Bustamente, who appears to be the only one with premeditated causes. The case is assigned to Butch Karp to prosecute.

Meanwhile Butch's wife attorney Marlene Ciampi is thinking of retiring from her work of legally protecting battered women after a recent incident turned ugly. However, a case in Delaware to defend a woman accused of murdering her infant lures Marlene back into the courtroom.

TRUE JUSTICE is an intriguing look at similar cases from the perspectives of the DA's office and the defense attorney. The plot also provides readers with an insightful look at how a tense case can impact the personal lives of the players. The story line at first appears to simply manipulate the tale to allow Ciampi's subplot to occur rather than flow from events. Still, Robert K. Tanenbaum makes it work through his intelligent gaze at the junction of the legal, moral, and political systems abetted by the strong relationship between the lead couple. Legal thriller fans will thrill to the latest Ciampi-Karp tale.

Harriet Klausner

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not bad..., August 12, 2000

By 

Tina "Tina" (Montreal, Quebec) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: True Justice (Hardcover)

Once again Tanenbaum brings back his characters shaping this book into a legal thriller.

While I always enjoy this author's work, I can never quite get over the feeling that I am reading short stories instead of one novel. It always seems that Marlene, Butch and Lucy are all living out their lives separately and that although the stories do cross over, are never really intertwined properly.

This last novel is no exception to this. While I admire Tanenbaum's attitude of "strong women - no victims" approach in all his books, I never get the feeling that the characters complete themselves.

Nonetheless, a good read and of course, as always, the somewhat "dry humor" is always great.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars continuing saga of the Karp family, August 28, 2000

By 

GranAnn "Ann" (Panama City FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: True Justice (Hardcover)

I haven't missed a Tanenbaum book yet and cannot wait for the next one. Marlene, Butch, Lucy, Zik and Zak, Harry-- all of em are my favorite characters. oops--missed Sweety and Tran.I've enjoyed following them from the beginning, and especially like the development of Lucy, as the adventures continue. Wonder when the twins will start solving crimes? It is after I finish a new book that I go back to previous Karp adventures and re-read. My husband thinks re-reading is silly , so please Mr. Tanenbaum, start on a new one soon! An insatiable reader in NWFla