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The Devil's Advocate (Mass Market Paperback)

by Andrew Neiderman (Author) "Twenty-eight-year-old Kevin Taylor looked up from the papers spread out over the long chestnut-brown table before him and paused, pretending to think deeply about something..." (more)
Key Phrases: welcoming gift, John Milton, Father Vincent, Lois Wilson (more...)
3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (28 customer reviews)

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Product Description

When Kevin Taylor joins the Manhattan criminal law firm of John Milton & Associates, he's hit the big time. At last, he and his wife can enjoy the luxuries they've so desired -- money, a chauffeur-driven limo, and a stunning home in a high-rise. Then Milton assigns Kevin one of the most notorious cases of the year, with a file that had been put together prior to the crime. Throwing himself into his work, Kevin begins to see a pattern of evil emerging from behind the firm's plush facade. Acquittal after acquittal, every criminal client walks free, and Kevin's suspicions slowly give way to terror. For Kevin has just become The Devil's Advocate.

From the Publisher

DEFENDER OF THE DAMNED...

When Kevin Taylor joins the Manhattan criminal law firm of John Milton and Associates, he's hit the big time. At last, he and his wife can enjoy the luxuries they've so desired—a chauffeur-driven limo, a stunning home in the very building that Mr. Milton himself lives in. Little does Kevin realize that he's joined

A BROTHERHOOD OF BLOOD

John Milton assigns Kevin one of the most notorious cases of the year, along with a file that had been put together prior to the crime. Throwing himself into his work, Kevin begins to see a pattern of evil emerging from behind the plush facade of his firm. As he watches them win every courtroom battle, and sees every criminal walk free, his mounting suspicions give way to all-out terror. For Kevin has become

THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE

and there's no turning back from the world of the damned...

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

  • Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Pocket (November 1, 1997)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0671014102
  • ISBN-13: 978-0671014100
  • Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 5.8 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #429,965 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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First Sentence:
Twenty-eight-year-old Kevin Taylor looked up from the papers spread out over the long chestnut-brown table before him and paused, pretending to think deeply about something before cross-examining the witness. Read the first page
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welcoming gift
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John Milton, Father Vincent, Lois Wilson, Beverly Morgan, Helen Scholefield, Miss Wilson, Paul Scholefield, New York, Stanley Rothberg, Barbara Stanley, Kevin Taylor, Maxine Rothberg, Richard Jaffee, Dave Kotein, Barbara Louise, Sanford Boyle, Gloria Jaffee, Bramble Inn, Garth Sessler, Long Island, Shapiro's Lake House, Tracey Casewell, Brian Carlton, Martin Balm, Maxine Shapiro
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Customer Reviews

28 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.2 out of 5 stars (28 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars A rarity: movie better than book, October 3, 2005
By S. McCrea "s_mccrea" (Henderson, NV United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This is one of those rare occasions where the movie is much better than the book. This novel is a mediocre effort. It might have benefitted from a futher rewrite--or three. It also doesn't seem to have been through the hands of a competent editor. The book's one real contribution is that it gave Taylor Hackford the basis for an excellent movie.

I suppose I should admit that I'm a fan of the genre. Satan, as a cultural archetype, has long fascinated me. Even with all of its flaws, "Omen III" is still one of my favorite movies. Unlike Sam Neil's tongue-in-cheek performance, Neiderman's book in unleavened by humor, intentional or unintentional. The author takes his subject and his book with a stultifying seriousness. A seriousness his slender gifts can't support.

Unfortunately, the book fails to meet the expectations raised by its concept. Its muddled, unfocused plot is one of the problems that Hackford rectifies in his filmed version. Satan as presented in this book seems little more dangerous than Bob Barker--unlike the frenetic performance by Al Pacino. The two characters have only the name in common.

The writing, at times, is surprisingly bad. The dialogue is often stilted and awkward. The Devil is named John Milton in a rather clumsy attempt at a joke. The author never refers to the character as anything but "John Milton" or "Mr. Milton."

The books protagonist, Kevin Taylor, is recruited by Milton's premiere criminal law firm after winning an acquittal from a child-molesting middle school teacher. His staid, Long Island firm's partners, far more comfortable with zoning variances and drafting wills, suggests he look elsewhere to continue his career. Having the Devil's offers already in his back pocket, Taylor leaves the firm and goes to work in Manhattan.

Afraid his wife will be reluctant to leave their cozy Long Island life for the hustle of Manhattan, he soon finds she's even more swept up in the big city's temptations than himself. But, naturally, all does not stay well long. As with so many possibilties, Neiderman fails to use the marriage, as Hackford does, to illustrate the price to be paid for giving into temptation.

Taylor's suspicions are first aroused when he begins having dreams of his wife having sex with another man while he lies next to her. When he awakes, she congratulates him on the great sex they've had--sex Kevin can't remember at all.

In an inexplicable plot twist, Satanus ex Machina, if you will, our protagonist, discovers a computer file filled with cases, two years ahead, of crimes that haven't yet been committed.

From there the book goes from the mediocre--a chauffer named "Charon"--to the implausible--all delivered in pedestrian prose with characters that are essentially interchangeable and uninsteresting.

Instead of the great confrontation and twist at the end Hackford gives us in the movie, Neiderman's book ends up with this razor-sharp, brilliant criminal defense lawyer stumbling through an obvious set-up in an ending pinched, and not cleverly, from the Omen films. He finds himself serving a life sentence, where the prisoners assure him of his safety as long as he helps them draft their appeals. Sent to the prison law-library he finds the prison librarian's eyes to be the same as the ubiquitous John Milton. And the writing isn't THAT interesting.

Finally, there's just little in this novel to hold the reader's attention. In a better writer's hands, the basic idea would have only been scaffolding for the story. Unfortunately, Neiderman presents us only with the scaffolding. He's very fortunate that Taylor Hackford took that scaffolding and fleshed it out to produce a very good movie.

Neiderman seems incapable of seeing the richer possibilities and gives us a second rate novel that lacks of the pacing of Grisham's potboilers. It's just a mess with some "diamonds in the mud." Unlike so many times where a film is unable to capture the fullness of the novel, "The Devil's Advocate" reverses the cliche. There simply isn't any complexity to lose. It's like a the pencil sketch of a painting on the canvas without the paint.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars A Modern Devil in Film and Novel, September 14, 2002
By A Customer
My interest in the classics, such as Faust, Paradise Lost and The Divine Comedy inspired my interest in the movie and book versions of The Devil's Advocate. Though it would not be appropriate to compare the modern story intended as popular entertainment with these literary classics, the subject matter is similar and might interest anyone with an appreciation of these works. I saw the movie first and felt that novel might have something more to offer. I felt that the book lacked much of the drama of the film - two-thirds of it is devoted to the saga of Kevin and Miriam moving from a suburb to downtown New York. I had expected it to deal more with the confrontation of innocence with ultimate evil. This is conveyed more effectively in the movie by the character of Satan as portrayed by Al Pacino. The character of Kevin's wife is drawn much more sympathetically in the film than the book. The ending of the movie is more convincing and powerful than that of the book, which tends to rely on theatrical devices. I thought picking on the legal profession as the Devil's chosen instrument of evil was a bit overdone in the movie; the book suggests that disreputable lawyers represent only one arm of Satan, and that everyone has spores of evil within them waiting for an appropriate opportunity to germinate. A reading of the book may stimulate more ideas than the faster paced movie, but overall the film strengthens some of the themes in the story and makes the characters more compelling. One must credit the author with an imaginative idea that was to some extent refined by the screenwriters. Those with an interest in classical literature are apt to be more critical of the book than the film, but both stimulate the imagination.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Don't Be Fooled, April 14, 2000
By "zehrapushu" (Long Island, NY) - See all my reviews
I was prompted to buy this book based on the film. I adored the movie. It has become one of my favorites. Imagine my surprise when I opened the book to find not just a bland, slow, tiresome read, but a stylistic atrocity! Neiderman writes like a sixth grader. His use of rhetorical questions and foreshadowing plays to the lowest common denomenator. It boggles the mind that anyone would publish this hack (speaking of which, there are numerous blatant grammatical errors... what the hell was the editor thinking when he allowed this to go to press?) When writing a book about a place where people actually live there is some need to research (Long Island towns don't have small town mentalities, especially in Nassau County). Needless to say, don't waste your money, but definately see the movie. The screen writer deserves an academy award for turning this pedestrian attempt at a novel into such a thought provoking film.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A good beach book
Maybe it's because some of the reviews were negative, but this book was better than I expected it to be. Read more
Published 4 months ago by ennui

3.0 out of 5 stars Might Have Been Better
The author took a decent idea and didn't do much with it. After defending an elementary school teacher (whom Kevin believes is guilty)accused of molesting one of her students, a... Read more
Published 5 months ago by M. Reinhart

2.0 out of 5 stars Oh, jeez............
Like so many other reviewers, I am a huge fan of the movie that was based VERY loosely on this book. Read more
Published on October 16, 2005 by Free Thinker

5.0 out of 5 stars HELL IN A BRIEFCASE
THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE is a modernized version of Paradise Lost or Faust or countless other tales where the devil incarnate wreaks his particular brand of hellish doom. Read more
Published on August 14, 2004 by Michael Butts

5.0 out of 5 stars Paradise??????
The author of "The Devil's Advocate" Andrew Neiderman has created a readable story as well as a thought provoking composition. Read more
Published on December 11, 2002 by Lynn Barry

1.0 out of 5 stars AWFUL
I BOUGHT THIS BOOK SOLELY BECAUSE I LOVED THE DVD AND PRESUMED (WRONGLY)THAT SINCE THE SCREENPLAY WAS BASED UPON THIS BOOK, THE BOOK WOULD COMPLIMENT THE MOVIE AND OFFER MORE... Read more
Published on April 3, 2002 by J. P. Colbert

4.0 out of 5 stars I couldn't put it down
I enjoy fictional representations of Satan and really appreciated Devil's Advocate so I was very excited to get a chance to read the book upon which the movie was based. Read more
Published on July 6, 2001 by Magdalene Meretrix

4.0 out of 5 stars An enjoyable book if you keep an open mind
I read the book because I found the movie so enjoyable. The book turned out to be different from the movie which makes it all the more interesting because it is not predictable... Read more
Published on October 29, 2000 by ragwag

4.0 out of 5 stars A very well-written novel by an almost undiscovered author
If you haven't seen the movie yet, don't! The movie is very good, the book is much, much superior. The author, Andrew Neiderman, is also the ghost-writer of deceased V.C. Read more
Published on May 28, 2000 by Marco Aurelio

1.0 out of 5 stars The movie-AWESOME The book-TERRIBLE
The movie was outstanding. The book just plained ( ).First of all, every thing is different except for the character names,and the location of John Milton's office. Read more
Published on May 17, 2000 by Scottie

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