Dead Even (Mass Market Paperback)

~ Brad Meltzer (Author) "WHAT IF IT'S A DISASTER?..." (more)
Key Phrases: slayer statute, silver golf ball, booking sheets, New York, Sara Tate, Arnold Doniger (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Sara Tate starts her job as a New York City assistant district attorney the day before massive budget cuts. To keep her job, she grabs a case slated for one of the DA office's hot shots, thinking it will be the kind of showpiece that'll make her a hero. The next day, she learns that the defense attorney on the case is her husband, Jared Lynch. To make matters worse, what appeared to be a simple breaking and entering is beginning to look more like a murder.

Someone is pitting Sara and Jared against each other and both are being threatened: win the case or your spouse dies. Sara and Jared have struggled and suffered more than your ordinary young lawyers and their desperation to protect one another and their life together is almost palpable. But the more they fight to win the case, the more they put each other's lives in jeopardy.

Dead Even is truly gripping. Brad Meltzer has created characters that are realistic enough to be believable, but quirky enough to be captivating. The lawyers are especially determined and the criminals are especially sinister. Even more impressive than his characters is his don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-something plot, which grabs you on page one and doesn't let go until you close the cover. When reading Dead Even, you may find yourself holding your breath as you furiously turn the pages. It's a legal thriller that gives Grisham's books a run for their money. -- Mara Friedman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Just when you thought there were no more changes to be rung on the legal thriller, Meltzer follows up his bestselling inside look at the Supreme Court (The Tenth Justice) with this sleek, suspenseful, only slightly unbelievable story about two young New York lawyers in love and in danger. Sara Tate and Jared Lynch are married to each other and to their legal careers: he's a rising star for the defense in a big firm; she's just starting as an assistant district attorney after six months of job seeking. On her first day, Sara hears that a budget cut could put her back on the unemployment lines, so she swipes a burglary case earmarked for a top man in the pecking order. But this is more than a routine burglary, and a powerful villain named Oscar Rafferty wants it to go away. He hires Jared to defend the accused, a sadistic monster called Tony Kozlow, telling him that unless Kozlow walks, Sara dies. While Jared grapples with the moral issues involved?and avoids telling Sara about the threat for hundreds of pages?another nasty type (whose fingerprints match several dead criminals) pushes Sara's grandfather down a flight of subway stairs and says he'll do worse to Jared unless Kozlow is convicted. Fearing for each other's safety, their marriage cracking under the strain, Sara and Jared joust in front of a grand jury and then get ready for trial, with Sara helped over some serious speed bumps by a nicely sketched young assistant and a tough prosecutor with a romantic interest. Several murders and a subway shoot-out eventually resolve this somewhat overlong but definitely compelling tale of legal and extralegal adventure. Author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 560 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (March 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446607339
• ISBN-13: 978-0446607339
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (143 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #249,932 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Eminently skippable, May 29, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Dead Even (Hardcover)

Where do all these rave "reviews" come from -- honestly? Most of these exuberant reader-reviews appeared here even before the books were in the stores! Which leads me to suspect that these "reviews" were actually engineered by the book's publisher -- which, if true, is a real abuse of the great Amazon "people's review" system. The characters are paper-thin, unbelievable, and implausible (brand names don't make characterization), the central plot-gimmick is woefully contrived, there are dumb coincidences and plot twists that make you scratch your head and lose any faith in the writer, and the writing is pretty mediocre. (To the reader-reviewer who asks "Where did this guy learn to write?" I say, the Berlitz English-as-a-Foreign-Language School). And as a lawyer I can tell you there are so many improbabilities and bone-headed misunderstandings of how the law works in reality that I can only conclude the author may have gone to law school but he clearly never practiced real law. There are so many good legal-thriller authors around -- John Lescroart, Philip Friedman, Steve Martini, even the Godzilla of them all, Grisham -- who I'd suggest you read before you plunk down the money for this dreck. I've read worse, certainly, but not between hard covers.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Meltzer is improving-- but not much, October 16, 2002

By	Philip J. Moore (Alma, MI USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Meltzer is an interesting author. His prose is interesting and well done. However, he has several significant limitations:

1. His plots are too predictable.

2. His characters remind me of cartoon characters. Too flat. They always whine. Too much self doubt.

3. His lawyers are always the dumbest lawyers in literature with the hero or heroine role. Don't they teach ethics in law school anymore. His hero always seem to have failed ethics. Once they cross the ethical line they never seem smart enough to know how to correct the situation. I wish the author wrote about lawyers that knew the law.

This is a good book to read in the waiting room. It is mildly entertaining but I never objected if I was interrupted while reading.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars dissapointing and not exciting..., May 3, 2002

By	Bill Garrison (Oklahoma City, OK USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)

Dead Even is the second Brad Meltzer book I have read, after the First Counsel. Dead Even is worse in every respect and I would not recommend it. I loved The First Counsel, but Dead Even has none of the suspense or intrigue that made The First Counsel so exciting.

Jared is the defense attorney and Sara is the DA on a burgerly case that soon turns into big trouble for the husband and wife. Both are threatened with a win or your spouse dies proposition. Quite an intriguing plot, but it seems Meltzer struggled finding circumstances that would result in that plot twist. It seems like all of the bad guys exist in this book solely to mess up Sara and Jared. It seems like Meltzer forces the action.

The book is chugging along, being mildly entertaining, when suddenly it starts being incredibly exciting for a few pages. Sara and Jared are trying to win their cases to save the other, but at the same time they can't tell each other what they are doing. This leads to them growing apart and possibly becoming attracted to other people. Before, I had never felt like there marriage was in danger from the bad guys, but when Jared and Sara's own feelings started going in other directions and kisses and allegations of affairs started flying, I really felt interested in their fate. Would Sara and Jared's marriage be destroyed, not by the somewhat comical bad guys, but by their own mistrust for each other?

Unfortanatley, Meltzer wastes this intrigue and suspense by immediately switching gears and having Sara and Jared resolve their conflict. Then from that point on, the book fizzles out into a boring conclusion.

Dead Even was boring because it didn't have a gripping, exciting background like the White House. Just two lawyers caught in a contrived situation. Also, Meltzer's dialogue can get somewhat old. Does everyone have to be a comedian?