John Grisham is back with his latest courtroom conundrum, The Street Lawyer. This time the lord of legal thrillers dives deep into the...... more

John Grisham is back with his latest courtroom conundrum, The Street Lawyer. This time the lord of legal thrillers dives deep into the world of the homeless, particularly their barely audible legal voice in a world dominated by large, all-powerful law firms. Our hero, Michael Brock, is on the fast track to partnership at Washington D.C.'s premier law firm, Sweeny & Drake. His dream of someday raking in a million plus a year is finally within reach. Nothing can stop him, not even 90- hour workweeks and a failing marriage--until he meets DeVon Hardy, a.k.a. "Mister," a Vietnam vet with a grudge against his landlord--and a few lawyers to fry. Hardy, with no clear motive, takes Brock and eight of his colleagues hostage in a boardroom, demanding their tax returns and interrogating them with a conviction that would have put perpetrators of the Spanish Inquisition to shame. Hardy, a man of few words and a lot of ammunition, mumbles cryptically: "Who are the evictors?" as he points a .44 automatic within inches of Brock's face. The violent outcome of the hostage situation triggers an abrupt soul-searching for the young lawyer, and Hardy's mysterious question continues to haunt him. Brock learns that Hardy had been in and out of homeless shelters most of his life, but he had recently begun paying rent in a rundown building; that means he has legal recourse when a big money-making outfit such as Sweeny & Drake boots him with no warning. When Brock realises that his profession caters to the morally challenged, he sets out on an aimless search through the dicier side of D.C., ending up at the 14th Street Legal Clinic. The clinic's director, a gargantuan man named Mordecai Green, woos Brock to the clinic with a $90,000 cut in pay and the chance to redeem his soul. Brock takes it--and some of the story's credibility along with it; it's hard to believe that a Yale graduate who sacrificed everything--including his marriage--to succeed in the legal profession would quickly jump at the opportunity for low-paying charitable work. However, Brock's search for corruption in the swanky upper echelons of Sweeny & Drake (via the toughest streets of D.C.) is filled with colourful characters and realistic, gritty descriptions. In the The Street Lawyer, Grisham once again defends the voiceless and powerless. In the words of Mordecai Green: "That's justice, Michael. That's what street law is all about. Dignity." --Amazon.com

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John Grisham is back with his latest courtroom conundrum, The Street Lawyer. This time the lord of legal thrillers dives deep into the...... more

John Grisham is back with his latest courtroom conundrum, The Street Lawyer. This time the lord of legal thrillers dives deep into the world of the homeless, particularly their barely audible legal voice in a world dominated by large, all-powerful law firms. Our hero, Michael Brock, is on the fast track to partnership at Washington D.C.'s premier law firm, Sweeny & Drake. His dream of someday raking in a million plus a year is finally within reach. Nothing can stop him, not even 90- hour workweeks and a failing marriage--until he meets DeVon Hardy, a.k.a. "Mister," a Vietnam vet with a grudge against his landlord--and a few lawyers to fry. Hardy, with no clear motive, takes Brock and eight of his colleagues hostage in a boardroom, demanding their tax returns and interrogating them with a conviction that would have put perpetrators of the Spanish Inquisition to shame. Hardy, a man of few words and a lot of ammunition, mumbles cryptically: "Who are the evictors?" as he points a .44 automatic within inches of Brock's face. The violent outcome of the hostage situation triggers an abrupt soul-searching for the young lawyer, and Hardy's mysterious question continues to haunt him. Brock learns that Hardy had been in and out of homeless shelters most of his life, but he had recently begun paying rent in a rundown building; that means he has legal recourse when a big money-making outfit such as Sweeny & Drake boots him with no warning. When Brock realises that his profession caters to the morally challenged, he sets out on an aimless search through the dicier side of D.C., ending up at the 14th Street Legal Clinic. The clinic's director, a gargantuan man named Mordecai Green, woos Brock to the clinic with a $90,000 cut in pay and the chance to redeem his soul. Brock takes it--and some of the story's credibility along with it; it's hard to believe that a Yale graduate who sacrificed everything--including his marriage--to succeed in the legal profession would quickly jump at the opportunity for low-paying charitable work. However, Brock's search for corruption in the swanky upper echelons of Sweeny & Drake (via the toughest streets of D.C.) is filled with colourful characters and realistic, gritty descriptions. In the The Street Lawyer, Grisham once again defends the voiceless and powerless. In the words of Mordecai Green: "That's justice, Michael. That's what street law is all about. Dignity." --Amazon.com

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John Grisham is back with his latest courtroom conundrum, The Street Lawyer. This time the lord of legal thrillers dives deep into the...... more

John Grisham is back with his latest courtroom conundrum, The Street Lawyer. This time the lord of legal thrillers dives deep into the world of the homeless, particularly their barely audible legal voice in a world dominated by large, all-powerful law firms. Our hero, Michael Brock, is on the fast track to partnership at Washington D.C.'s premier law firm, Sweeny & Drake. His dream of someday raking in a million plus a year is finally within reach. Nothing can stop him, not even 90- hour workweeks and a failing marriage--until he meets DeVon Hardy, a.k.a. "Mister," a Vietnam vet with a grudge against his landlord--and a few lawyers to fry. Hardy, with no clear motive, takes Brock and eight of his colleagues hostage in a boardroom, demanding their tax returns and interrogating them with a conviction that would have put perpetrators of the Spanish Inquisition to shame. Hardy, a man of few words and a lot of ammunition, mumbles cryptically: "Who are the evictors?" as he points a .44 automatic within inches of Brock's face. The violent outcome of the hostage situation triggers an abrupt soul-searching for the young lawyer, and Hardy's mysterious question continues to haunt him. Brock learns that Hardy had been in and out of homeless shelters most of his life, but he had recently begun paying rent in a rundown building; that means he has legal recourse when a big money-making outfit such as Sweeny & Drake boots him with no warning. When Brock realises that his profession caters to the morally challenged, he sets out on an aimless search through the dicier side of D.C., ending up at the 14th Street Legal Clinic. The clinic's director, a gargantuan man named Mordecai Green, woos Brock to the clinic with a $90,000 cut in pay and the chance to redeem his soul. Brock takes it--and some of the story's credibility along with it; it's hard to believe that a Yale graduate who sacrificed everything--including his marriage--to succeed in the legal profession would quickly jump at the opportunity for low-paying charitable work. However, Brock's search for corruption in the swanky upper echelons of Sweeny & Drake (via the toughest streets of D.C.) is filled with colourful characters and realistic, gritty descriptions. In the The Street Lawyer, Grisham once again defends the voiceless and powerless. In the words of Mordecai Green: "That's justice, Michael. That's what street law is all about. Dignity." --Amazon.com

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John Grisham is back with his latest courtroom conundrum, The Street Lawyer. This time the lord of legal thrillers dives deep into the...... more

John Grisham is back with his latest courtroom conundrum, The Street Lawyer. This time the lord of legal thrillers dives deep into the world of the homeless, particularly their barely audible legal voice in a world dominated by large, all-powerful law firms. Our hero, Michael Brock, is on the fast track to partnership at Washington D.C.'s premier law firm, Sweeny & Drake. His dream of someday raking in a million plus a year is finally within reach. Nothing can stop him, not even 90- hour workweeks and a failing marriage--until he meets DeVon Hardy, a.k.a. "Mister," a Vietnam vet with a grudge against his landlord--and a few lawyers to fry. Hardy, with no clear motive, takes Brock and eight of his colleagues hostage in a boardroom, demanding their tax returns and interrogating them with a conviction that would have put perpetrators of the Spanish Inquisition to shame. Hardy, a man of few words and a lot of ammunition, mumbles cryptically: "Who are the evictors?" as he points a .44 automatic within inches of Brock's face. The violent outcome of the hostage situation triggers an abrupt soul-searching for the young lawyer, and Hardy's mysterious question continues to haunt him. Brock learns that Hardy had been in and out of homeless shelters most of his life, but he had recently begun paying rent in a rundown building; that means he has legal recourse when a big money-making outfit such as Sweeny & Drake boots him with no warning. When Brock realises that his profession caters to the morally challenged, he sets out on an aimless search through the dicier side of D.C., ending up at the 14th Street Legal Clinic. The clinic's director, a gargantuan man named Mordecai Green, woos Brock to the clinic with a $90,000 cut in pay and the chance to redeem his soul. Brock takes it--and some of the story's credibility along with it; it's hard to believe that a Yale graduate who sacrificed everything--including his marriage--to succeed in the legal profession would quickly jump at the opportunity for low-paying charitable work. However, Brock's search for corruption in the swanky upper echelons of Sweeny & Drake (via the toughest streets of D.C.) is filled with colourful characters and realistic, gritty descriptions. In the The Street Lawyer, Grisham once again defends the voiceless and powerless. In the words of Mordecai Green: "That's justice, Michael. That's what street law is all about. Dignity." --Amazon.com

... less

John Grisham is back with his latest courtroom conundrum, The Street Lawyer. This time the lord of legal thrillers dives deep into the...... more

John Grisham is back with his latest courtroom conundrum, The Street Lawyer. This time the lord of legal thrillers dives deep into the world of the homeless, particularly their barely audible legal voice in a world dominated by large, all-powerful law firms. Our hero, Michael Brock, is on the fast track to partnership at Washington D.C.'s premier law firm, Sweeny & Drake. His dream of someday raking in a million plus a year is finally within reach. Nothing can stop him, not even 90- hour workweeks and a failing marriage--until he meets DeVon Hardy, a.k.a. "Mister," a Vietnam vet with a grudge against his landlord--and a few lawyers to fry. Hardy, with no clear motive, takes Brock and eight of his colleagues hostage in a boardroom, demanding their tax returns and interrogating them with a conviction that would have put perpetrators of the Spanish Inquisition to shame. Hardy, a man of few words and a lot of ammunition, mumbles cryptically: "Who are the evictors?" as he points a .44 automatic within inches of Brock's face. The violent outcome of the hostage situation triggers an abrupt soul-searching for the young lawyer, and Hardy's mysterious question continues to haunt him. Brock learns that Hardy had been in and out of homeless shelters most of his life, but he had recently begun paying rent in a rundown building; that means he has legal recourse when a big money-making outfit such as Sweeny & Drake boots him with no warning. When Brock realises that his profession caters to the morally challenged, he sets out on an aimless search through the dicier side of D.C., ending up at the 14th Street Legal Clinic. The clinic's director, a gargantuan man named Mordecai Green, woos Brock to the clinic with a $90,000 cut in pay and the chance to redeem his soul. Brock takes it--and some of the story's credibility along with it; it's hard to believe that a Yale graduate who sacrificed everything--including his marriage--to succeed in the legal profession would quickly jump at the opportunity for low-paying charitable work. However, Brock's search for corruption in the swanky upper echelons of Sweeny & Drake (via the toughest streets of D.C.) is filled with colourful characters and realistic, gritty descriptions. In the The Street Lawyer, Grisham once again defends the voiceless and powerless. In the words of Mordecai Green: "That's justice, Michael. That's what street law is all about. Dignity." --Amazon.com

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Peter James is taking over the world -- or at least the crime fiction part of it. Dead Like You, the latest instalment in his increasingly popular...... more

Peter James is taking over the world -- or at least the crime fiction part of it. Dead Like You, the latest instalment in his increasingly popular series featuring Brighton detective Roy Grace, has sold even more spectacularly than its predecessors, keeping crime heavyweights James Patterson and John Grisham from the number one slot in the UK bestseller lists. And after lengthy delays, the long-awaited television series is to be made -- a series that will no doubt make Grace's stamping ground of Brighton as familiar as Inspector Morse's Oxford. So what is the secret of the James/Grace success? It's simple: over many years and many books, James has refined his storytelling skills to the nth degree and has the full measure of the classic police procedural narrative. In the new book, Brighton's Metropole Hotel is the scene of an unpleasant incident: a woman is savagely raped when she enters a room. Some days later, another woman is similarly assaulted -- both have their shoes stolen by the offender. Assigned to the case, Detective Superintendent Grace becomes aware that these two incidents have disturbing echoes of a sequence of crimes that shook Brighton in 1997. The rapist (who had been described as Shoe Man) claimed five victims, the last of which he had murdered before disappearing. Grace is faced with two unpleasant possibilities; that the original Shoe Man who cheated justice 10 years ago has returned to wreak havoc again, or -- equally disturbingly -- there is a copycat at work.The growing army of admirers for James Grace books will be well aware of the mystery surrounding the disappearance of the detectives wife, Sandy -- a disappearance that James has allowed to remain enigmatic. The narrative of Dead Like You plays on that intriguing plot strand, as Grace is obliged to travel back mentally to a time when he was happily married in order to discover how he can defeat a monster in the present. This is one of Peter Jamess longest books, weighing in at nearly 600 pages, but aficionados will find that it is not a page too long. --Barry Forshaw

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There are two ways to look at this bestseller by Watergate scoopmeister Woodward. First, it's an original take on Clinton's sex scandal, framing it as the...... more

There are two ways to look at this bestseller by Watergate scoopmeister Woodward. First, it's an original take on Clinton's sex scandal, framing it as the latest consequence of Nixon's assault on the U.S. political system. Woodward sketches each president's tussles with scandal managing after Watergate permanently turned up the press heat on the White House. Ford lies about a meeting concerning a potential deal to pardon Nixon, but remains convinced he did nothing wrong. Carter's pious advocacy of truth telling backfires when he's confronted with conundrums involving his pal Bert Lance, the fallout from CIA-provided hookers, and cash for King Hussein. Reagan's men try to make him understand the lies and shocking wrongness of the Iran-Contra debacle, but he simply, stubbornly doesn't get it. And by the time prosecutors interview Reagan in 1992, he's so ill he can't remember his own oldest friends and advisers. All provocative stuff, some of it new. But most readers will flip to the book's second half, a fly-on-the-wall account of the backroom mud- wrestling in both the Clinton and Starr camps in the Monicagate morass. It's a trove of racy facts (mostly from anonymous sources). We read that Clinton called Nixon a "war criminal," yet tried to minimise Watergate in his Nixon eulogy, that he disgusted Ford and Jack Nicklaus by cheating while golfing with them, and that he kept falsely assuring aides, "I'm retired! [as an adulterer]." We hear Hillary's alleged words of agony and see the pain on Bill's face after Chelsea reads The Starr Report on the Internet. Starr comes off like RoboCop without the human side. Woodward calls him "pathetic and unwise" in rejecting his staff's urgent demand not to send the lurid details of presidential sex to Congress. "I love the narrative!" Starr weirdly exulted, according to Woodward's new Deep Throat (or Throats). Since Monica was interrogated at Starr's mother-in- law's apartment, which he called "Grandma's place," ethics expert Sam Dash suggested they call it "Operation Red Riding Hood." What sharp teeth everyone in this book has! To tell the truth, Woodward doesn't really knit together 25 years' worth of scandals into a single strong narrative. But the Clinton part is the closest thing yet to what we all crave: a tale of Monicagate with some of the flavour of a John Grisham thriller. --Tim Appelo

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There are two ways to look at this bestseller by Watergate scoopmeister Woodward. First, it's an original take on Clinton's sex scandal, framing it as the...... more

There are two ways to look at this bestseller by Watergate scoopmeister Woodward. First, it's an original take on Clinton's sex scandal, framing it as the latest consequence of Nixon's assault on the U.S. political system. Woodward sketches each president's tussles with scandal managing after Watergate permanently turned up the press heat on the White House. Ford lies about a meeting concerning a potential deal to pardon Nixon, but remains convinced he did nothing wrong. Carter's pious advocacy of truth telling backfires when he's confronted with conundrums involving his pal Bert Lance, the fallout from CIA-provided hookers, and cash for King Hussein. Reagan's men try to make him understand the lies and shocking wrongness of the Iran-Contra debacle, but he simply, stubbornly doesn't get it. And by the time prosecutors interview Reagan in 1992, he's so ill he can't remember his own oldest friends and advisers. All provocative stuff, some of it new. But most readers will flip to the book's second half, a fly-on-the-wall account of the backroom mud- wrestling in both the Clinton and Starr camps in the Monicagate morass. It's a trove of racy facts (mostly from anonymous sources). We read that Clinton called Nixon a "war criminal," yet tried to minimise Watergate in his Nixon eulogy, that he disgusted Ford and Jack Nicklaus by cheating while golfing with them, and that he kept falsely assuring aides, "I'm retired! [as an adulterer]." We hear Hillary's alleged words of agony and see the pain on Bill's face after Chelsea reads The Starr Report on the Internet. Starr comes off like RoboCop without the human side. Woodward calls him "pathetic and unwise" in rejecting his staff's urgent demand not to send the lurid details of presidential sex to Congress. "I love the narrative!" Starr weirdly exulted, according to Woodward's new Deep Throat (or Throats). Since Monica was interrogated at Starr's mother-in- law's apartment, which he called "Grandma's place," ethics expert Sam Dash suggested they call it "Operation Red Riding Hood." What sharp teeth everyone in this book has! To tell the truth, Woodward doesn't really knit together 25 years' worth of scandals into a single strong narrative. But the Clinton part is the closest thing yet to what we all crave: a tale of Monicagate with some of the flavour of a John Grisham thriller. --Tim Appelo

... less

Peter James is taking over the world -- or at least the crime fiction part of it. Dead Like You, the latest instalment in his increasingly popular...... more

Peter James is taking over the world -- or at least the crime fiction part of it. Dead Like You, the latest instalment in his increasingly popular series featuring Brighton detective Roy Grace, has sold even more spectacularly than its predecessors, keeping crime heavyweights James Patterson and John Grisham from the number one slot in the UK bestseller lists. And after lengthy delays, the long-awaited television series is to be made -- a series that will no doubt make Grace's stamping ground of Brighton as familiar as Inspector Morse's Oxford. So what is the secret of the James/Grace success? It's simple: over many years and many books, James has refined his storytelling skills to the nth degree and has the full measure of the classic police procedural narrative. In the new book, Brighton's Metropole Hotel is the scene of an unpleasant incident: a woman is savagely raped when she enters a room. Some days later, another woman is similarly assaulted -- both have their shoes stolen by the offender. Assigned to the case, Detective Superintendent Grace becomes aware that these two incidents have disturbing echoes of a sequence of crimes that shook Brighton in 1997. The rapist (who had been described as Shoe Man) claimed five victims, the last of which he had murdered before disappearing. Grace is faced with two unpleasant possibilities; that the original Shoe Man who cheated justice 10 years ago has returned to wreak havoc again, or -- equally disturbingly -- there is a copycat at work.The growing army of admirers for James Grace books will be well aware of the mystery surrounding the disappearance of the detectives wife, Sandy -- a disappearance that James has allowed to remain enigmatic. The narrative of Dead Like You plays on that intriguing plot strand, as Grace is obliged to travel back mentally to a time when he was happily married in order to discover how he can defeat a monster in the present. This is one of Peter Jamess longest books, weighing in at nearly 600 pages, but aficionados will find that it is not a page too long. --Barry Forshaw

... less

There are two ways to look at this bestseller by Watergate scoopmeister Woodward. First, it's an original take on Clinton's sex scandal, framing it as the...... more

There are two ways to look at this bestseller by Watergate scoopmeister Woodward. First, it's an original take on Clinton's sex scandal, framing it as the latest consequence of Nixon's assault on the U.S. political system. Woodward sketches each president's tussles with scandal managing after Watergate permanently turned up the press heat on the White House. Ford lies about a meeting concerning a potential deal to pardon Nixon, but remains convinced he did nothing wrong. Carter's pious advocacy of truth telling backfires when he's confronted with conundrums involving his pal Bert Lance, the fallout from CIA-provided hookers, and cash for King Hussein. Reagan's men try to make him understand the lies and shocking wrongness of the Iran-Contra debacle, but he simply, stubbornly doesn't get it. And by the time prosecutors interview Reagan in 1992, he's so ill he can't remember his own oldest friends and advisers. All provocative stuff, some of it new. But most readers will flip to the book's second half, a fly-on-the-wall account of the backroom mud- wrestling in both the Clinton and Starr camps in the Monicagate morass. It's a trove of racy facts (mostly from anonymous sources). We read that Clinton called Nixon a "war criminal," yet tried to minimise Watergate in his Nixon eulogy, that he disgusted Ford and Jack Nicklaus by cheating while golfing with them, and that he kept falsely assuring aides, "I'm retired! [as an adulterer]." We hear Hillary's alleged words of agony and see the pain on Bill's face after Chelsea reads The Starr Report on the Internet. Starr comes off like RoboCop without the human side. Woodward calls him "pathetic and unwise" in rejecting his staff's urgent demand not to send the lurid details of presidential sex to Congress. "I love the narrative!" Starr weirdly exulted, according to Woodward's new Deep Throat (or Throats). Since Monica was interrogated at Starr's mother-in- law's apartment, which he called "Grandma's place," ethics expert Sam Dash suggested they call it "Operation Red Riding Hood." What sharp teeth everyone in this book has! To tell the truth, Woodward doesn't really knit together 25 years' worth of scandals into a single strong narrative. But the Clinton part is the closest thing yet to what we all crave: a tale of Monicagate with some of the flavour of a John Grisham thriller. --Tim Appelo

... less