The Legal Limit (Hardcover)

by Martin Clark (Author)
Key Phrases: coram vobis, Sadie Grace, Patrick County, Wayne Thompson (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From The Washington Post

Martin Clark's compelling legal thriller may be set in southern Virginia, but it also occupies the no-man's-land between what is lawful and what is just. Its central character, Mason Hunt, is a young attorney who finds his ascent from hardscrabble childhood to career success undermined by his complex relationship with his older brother, Gates, a former high school football hero turned bad. Mason knows Gates is poison but cannot forget the debt he owes his brother for protecting him from their abusive father. The inevitable trouble comes one drunken night when the Hunt boys, still in their early 20s, find themselves cornered by a vengeful redneck on a deserted country road.

The brothers cover up the resulting crime, and Mason goes on to marry a beautiful artist and work as the district attorney in his home town of Stuart, in Patrick County. Hunt's life takes a very different trajectory; his wild ways land him in jail on a 44-year sentence for drug trafficking. He comes to resent his younger brother's refusal to use his power to spring him. Fraternal bitterness leads to blackmail, leaving Mason "morally hog-tied, an accessory after the fact, the entire damnable bundle laid at his feet by someone he loved dearly."

In The Legal Limit, Clark, a circuit court judge in Stuart and the author of two acclaimed novels, The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living and Plain Heathen Mischief, has struck a fine balance between down-home ambiance and high-octane plot.

His Patrick County is "a splendid, serene, no-frills spot where the population is satisfied to be on the banks of the mainstream, clear of the current, passed by." It is a place where people carry their dope in Allman Brothers cassette covers and the cocktail of choice is "SunDrop and vodka without any ice to dilute the potency." Clark has a fine way with characters, such as the brothers' beleaguered mother, whose youthful beauty had "long ago been swallowed whole, replaced by sags and pallor and veins popped by punch-clock days on unforgiving factory floors." Equally memorable is Mason's wisecracking African American assistant, who must hide a painful secret as he negotiates the region's racial fault lines.

As good as the atmospherics are, what's best about The Legal Limit is Clark's ability to delineate Mason's ethical and emotional quandary as he is forced to choose between blood and principle. Skillfully weaving a plot that includes lie detectors, wiretaps and arcane legal principles, the author creates a world in which family ties can easily turn into nooses.

Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine
In this crime/legal thriller, Clark explores the boundaries between law and justice, sin and forgiveness, fraternal bonds and betrayal. Mason stands at the center of an ethical dilemma, but he is no less compelling than his brother, their mother, and even Mason's partner. Clark "draws characters as well as Scott Turow and crafts plots as well as John Grisham," notes the Oregonian, but reviewers agreed that Clark's background has given him superior understanding of legal intricacies. Humor, sharp, regional dialogue, and impeccable plotting make for an unstoppable narrative. Only the Los Angeles Times faulted Clark for sinking "into that soft-focus therapeutic argot that now passes for American moralizing." In the end, however, The Legal Limit compellingly shows that "doing justice does not always flow from a rigid application of the law" (Chicago Sun-Times).
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1 edition (July 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307268357
• ISBN-13: 978-0307268358
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #118,052 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Justice: "We should be concerned with how the soup tastes and not so damn worried about the particulars of the chef's hat.", July 8, 2008

By	Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

(4.5 stars) In this absorbing fictionalization of a real murder case from 1984, author Martin Clark, a Virginia circuit court judge, explores the increasingly fraught predicament of Mason Hunt, who, as a naïve young man makes a decision that he must live with for the next twenty years. The product of a terrible home life, Mason has been protected from his sadistic father, during his teen years, by his older brother Gates. Mason eventually escapes the family to attend college and law school, while his brother Gates, at home, grows into a man so filled with rage and so damaged that he believes the world owes him for the abuse he has suffered.

At the outset of the novel, Mason, a young law student, accompanies Gates to a party, where Gates, drunk and high on drugs, becomes involved in an altercation over his girlfriend and shoots and kills Wayne Thompson, her would-be suitor. There are no witnesses--except Mason, who moves instinctively to protect his older brother, crafting an alibi for himself and Gates, and then acting as if nothing has happened. The case remains unsolved, and the two go on with their lives, albeit in different directions. The Thompson case reopens dramatically, however, when Mason eventually becomes a Virginia Commonwealth's attorney, and Gates is in prison on another matter.

Clark tells such a lively can't-put-it-downer that many readers will read well into the wee hours. His characters, often quirky, leap off the page in their realism and the reader identifies with them and their problems, even while recognizing they may deserve the disasters that are obviously awaiting them. The story of the murder eventually insinuates itself into Mason's marriage and family, his long-term friendship with his black assistant, his decisions in the cases before him, and his desire to help his community become revitalized with new jobs, while the setting in Stuart, Virginia, where the actual case took place and where the author now resides, is so vibrant it becomes almost a character.

As in his two previous novels, The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living and Plain Heathen Mischief, Clark examines justice as a relative term, with each character defining it based on his own understanding of right and wrong, innocence and guilt, sin and salvation, and real-life success and failure. As Clark explores the consequences that result when someone commits a short term wrong in order to achieve what he believes is a long-term right, he shows that no decision is ever made in a vacuum or can remain in one. The novel's conclusion contains one or two more complications than are necessary or appreciated, but the author's themes are so fully developed, and the suspense is so fine-tuned that the reader will long ponder whether Mason's ultimate decisions are the "right" ones, or whether, once again, they are expedient. n Mary Whipple

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars realistic, complicated, and riveting, August 4, 2008

By	Angela Williams (Bassett, VA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The difference between "The Legal Limit" and other books about lawyers/court cases is that in "The Legal Limit" the reader gets an in-depth honest look at the complicated issues lawyers and judges face in their jobs and in their personal lives. This is true of "The Legal Limit" in part because it is based on a true event, Clark uses many real people in his book, and he is himself a judge.

However, this is more than a book about a crime in a specific locale. "The Legal Limit" is a fast-paced, riveting story that could be set anywhere. It's a story about relationships (about which Clark writes so well) as well as difficult situations where the law must be followed but sometimes is unjust.

I read this book in a day. When I finished, I was impressed by Clark's skill as a writer. His previous books (The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living and Plain Heathen Mischief) are excellent, but it's clear Clark's heart is in "The Legal Limit." He must be a compassionate judge, which is good for anyone who comes into his court, but after reading this book, I think readers hope he will give up his full-time job for writing.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Make time for this one!, August 1, 2008

By	R. Ward (Stuart, VA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book will grab you from the first chapter, suck you in and not let go until you finish it! It will make you laugh, it will make you cry, and has more twists and turns than Squirrel Spur Road where they say if you look back quick enough, you can see your own tail lights!

Having grown up in Patrick County, I can relate to the action as it takes place, but the story could apply to any small town in the US. A fast-paced and adroit novel about the legal system and our own human failings, it will keep you reading long into the night. I couldn't put it down until I finished it! I have read all of Martin's novels and this is his best yet! Highly recommended.