As I have mentioned in other posts, I began my serious adult work career as a lawyer (between college and law school, I tried a lot of different jobs, none satisfying). I was a trial attorney in the U.S. Midwest for a number of years before moving back to the East Coast and becoming an editor. My experience as a trial attorney, especially my experience defending persons accused of committing a crime, has always interfered with any enjoyment I might otherwise have gotten by reading lawyer-centric legal thrillers.
For example, it stretches my credulity beyond the limits to read about a first-year associate at a major law firm discovering a plot by the firm’s senior partners against America and then single-handedly saving the day, fighting off experienced, special forces-trained security personnel. Especially when dragging along another person who is even less-well prepared for the rigors of the fight than the associate. The point is, my experience prevents me from wrapping my head around the prose of the standard legal thriller, so I just don’t read them.
But as I have also noted numerous times, I like to explore indie-authored ebooks and am willing to give a free legal thriller a try, even though I have low expectations.
Imagine my surprise when I read Rebecca Forster’s Hostile Witness, which is free at Smashwords and Barnes & Noble. This book rates 5+ stars on my rating scale (see On Books: Indie eBooks Worth Reading (I) for information on how I rate ebooks). It is not that this book doesn’t have some of the flights of fancy that simply do not occur in legal practice; rather, it is that this book more closely tracks how a trial occurs, how a case unfolds, and what a good lawyer really does.
Our heroine is Josie Baxter-Bates, a lawyer with personal issues, but one who is quite good at her job. In Hostile Witness, she is hired to defend a teenager who is accused of murdering her stepgrandfather. The evidence is clear — or is it? The storyline is not that of a lawyer who suddenly becomes a superinvestigator and can perform miracles that the finest police officers and detectives — short, perhaps, of Sherlock Holmes — cannot do. Instead, it is the story of a highly competent lawyer and the courtroom scenes (at least most of them) reflect what really can occur, not just what is needed to occur to move the story along.
The characters are well-formed and believable. The lawyers are reflections of real lawyers. The sequence is much like a real legal case (there is some exaggeration and skipping over fine points, but then this is a novel and should be expected). The writing is crisp, with only a few errors scattered throughout the book.
I found myself thoroughly enjoying a legal thriller for the first time since I read John Grisham’s A Time to Kill, published in 1993 — a very long time ago when it comes to reading. (This was the only Grisham legal thriller that I thought reflected the real practice of law and the only one of his books I thought worth reading, although I did try a couple of others.) I found that I couldn’t put Hostile Witness down; I wanted to read it in one sitting.
I was so impressed with Hostile Witness, and so enamored with how well the characters were created, that as soon as I finished it, I went searching for more ebooks by Rebecca Forster. Turns out that Hostile Witness is the first book of a quartet of books starring Josie Baxter-Bates. I purchased, for $3.99 each, books 2, 3, and 4 in the series: Silent Witness, Privileged Witness, and Expert Witness. Each is also available at Smashwords and at Barnes & Noble.
I have read Silent Witness, and although it is well-written, this book is a 5-star book rather than a 5+-star book. Again the courtroom scenes are spot on, but I always have trouble with stories about lawyers defending their lovers, which is what this one is about. The focus shifts from the less emotional to the more emotional because of the relationship, yet I must also admit that I had difficulty setting this book aside for such daily tasks as work, eating, and sleeping.
Immediately following Silent Witness, I read Privileged Witness. Like the preceding two books, this one is well-written, but is beginning to join the formulaic. In this story, the villains are a politician — and a former lover of our heroine — and the politician’s sister. There is a subplot involving a battered wife and her homicidal husband, which I think would have made a better story. Unfortunately, in Privileged Witness, Josie Baxter-Bates begins to look like a typical action hero rather than a competent lawyer. I found the story less compelling, but still a very good read. I’d give this book just under 5 stars because it is moving closer to the Scott Turow-John Grisham type of legal thriller that I do not like.
I am now in the midst of reading the last of the quartet, Expert Witness. This book starts out with our heroine having been kidnapped. I am about a third of the way through the story. Like its predecessors, it is well-written and a hard-to-put-down read, but the story, so far, centers on the efforts of Bates’ lover and ward (she is legal guardian of a teenager) to find her. Based on what I have read so far, this will also be a slightly less than 5-star rating, with the lowered rating solely because of the plot, not the execution. However, a final rating awaits my finishing the book.
If you like legal thrillers, or even just a well-constructed, well-written story with believable characters — characters that could have been taken from your neighborhood — then this quartet of books by Rebecca Forster is meant for you. These books belong in the pantheon of indie books worth reading.
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An American Editor 