Raylan, Elmore Leonard, William Morrow, 2012, 228 pages, $15.53
Desert Star, Michael Connelly, Little-Brown, 2022, 395 pages, $10.99
The Boys from Biloxi, John Grisham, Penguin Random House, 2022, 464 pages, $18.00
Golden Age Bibliomysteries, Otto Penzler, editor, Penzler Publishers, 2023, 426 pages, $17.95
Being at a beach without a good crime novel is like showing up to a party in no mood for partying.
Whether pulp fiction, short crime stories, or who-done-it mysteries, nothing better vacates the mind while on vacation from the drudgery, grind and toll of plowing through disclosure material, expert reports, witness statements, or the ever so très fashionable open-source material with all its foundational challenges.
Occasionally (or not so occasionally) we indulge in the guilty pleasure of reading a fast-paced page-turner during our busy schedules when we should be working or getting a proper rest before a busy day ahead. This pleasurable diversionary frolic is frequently followed with ex post facto lament, much like that experienced after decadently enjoying a nutrition-less, calorie-dense, artery-clogging, fast-food favorite. Not so when we leave for the beaches or the mountains or wherever you escape to when court is in recess or when vacation leave arrives with all the promises of rest, relaxation, and revelry.
But who says that an easy-going, fast-moving, plainly-written mystery or action novel cannot also be instructional and informative. That is the added benefit. You don’t have to be on the hunt for anything; just be a little observant. From plot development to sentence structure to dialogue to ethical issues to character proclivities, there is always something to think about and maybe learn from – even when the author takes excessive literary or artistic license.
Frank Gruber’s list of essential ingredients for a successful pulp fiction adventure is pregnant with ideas. Gruber (1904-1969), was a prolific writer of short stories, mystery and western novels, and screenplays. His short story State Fare Murder, featured in Golden Age Bibliomysteries, is a fine example of what a good writer can achieve in a few pages. Illustrating the less is more principle of persuasive writing and oral advocacy – often eschewed even by seasoned advocates in favor of lengthy, verbose, meandering, boring, and unimpressive pleadings. Gruber, as we will see below, is not alone. Not that all writers adhere to brevity (most generally accomplished through the use of the active voice), but that is also part of the joy and benefit of reading an anthology or short stories or novels by different authors practicing their craft in more or less the same genre. Hence why I am also lumping together these four books in this review.
Gruber’s 11-point formula for successful adventure outlined in his autobiography The Pulp Jungle, as presented by Penzler in introducing Gruber, is instructive:
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- a colorful hero,
- a theme with information the reader is unlikely to know,
- a villain more powerful than the hero,
- a vivid background for the action,
- an unusual murder method or unexpected circumstances surrounding the crime,
- unusual variations on the common motives of greed and hate,
- a well-hidden clue,
- a trick or twist that will snatch victory from the jaws of defeat,
- constantly moving action,
- a protagonist who has a personal involvement, and
- a smashing climax.
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This list of points or formula does not directly apply to what we do as advocates. But it could. Try using them for creative guidance in sparking ideas for constructing an opening statement, designing a direct and cross examination, developing the necessary narratives (the overarching theory and accompanying theme of the case, and as to individual witnesses), conceptualizing strategies and tactics, drafting submissions, and formulating closing arguments.
Were you to consider that a trial is like putting on a play, where you are director, writer, producer, actor, choreographer, stage and costume designer (not necessarily all in every case), it makes sense. Just as it makes sense to borrow from film, art, and music, when searching for ideas and synthesizing motifs to enable us to best communicate our client’s case in a manner that causes the trier of fact to look beyond the mere surface or to refrain from jumping to conclusions based on circumstantial or unsatisfactorily tested evidence. The good advocate is an unapologetic thief of ideas, concepts, visual perspectives and literary devices that for the unobservant or the unimaginative or the uninterested are unappreciated.
As summer draws to a close, I recommend three fiction novels and one anthology of crime fiction mysteries. I will follow up this review with a final recommendation of a non-fiction book. Stay tuned.
The four books reviewed are light escapist reading. Deserving four stars in entertainment value, read on for my take on what these books can offer on writing techniques, character development, and ethics. Sorry to disappoint, no spoiler alerts or plot giveaways.
Elmore Leonard’s Deputy US Marshall Raylan Givens is one cool cat. Some of you may have watched the series Justified, in which Givens is played by Timothy Olyphant. The casting is spot on. In an interesting twist on the usual progression, the novel is based on the television series, which was in turn based on Leonard’s short story Fire in the Hole. Raylan was Leonard’s last novel, the third featuring Givens, or shall we just call him by his first name, Raylan. Leonard had a wide-ranging and highly successful career as a writer. You would not think his work to be literature, but when you deconstruct how he develops a story, or how he parsimoniously uses words to convey big thoughts, or how through virtually pure dialogue – for which he was one of the true greats – the characteristics of the characters are revealed. Action and momentum are driven by dialogue. No long soliloquies, no deep introspection or naval-gazing, no blabbering repartees. Short, punchy, clever one-liners lace the pages. Mostly by Raylan. Not that the other characters are flat or uninteresting. Far from it. Its just that Raylan is the man, effortlessly delivering spontaneous wit with the same flare and aplomb with which he delivers justice.
Raylan is not a strictly-by-the-book Deputy US Marshal. Not that he is prone to cutting corners or taking the law into his own hands, he just has a sense of right and wrong based in part on community values and traits. Having been born and raised and worked in the coal mines of West Virginia, Raylan goes about his job rather cerebrally, even if not explained or not obvious at first glance. Understanding who he is dealing with and knowing how they think is essential to how he reads a situation. Villains ultimately get their comeuppance and just desserts. Seemingly suspecting the likely outcome, Raylan is just as likely to stay clear and let nature take its course, as is he is to offer a good-naturedly riposte, knowing that it is falling on deaf ears. As you read on, you can’t help blurting out to yourself: well, he did warn you!
What I like most about Raylan is that he does not sweat the small stuff. Transgressions are happening left and right. Rather than cuffing and hauling the perp in to be booked, Rayland is willing to look the other way with a warning, read as reject at your peril. His sense of rough justice works. It works because he knows the people he is dealing with. He understands their challenges, their suspicions, their gripes.
Elmore Leonard is not just fun to read. His character and plot development through dialogue is a craft worth aspiring proficiency. Just think how much can be said, what actions can be explained, what feelings can be conveyed just by stitching witnesses’ words. Raylan is well worth reading even if you have watched the series. In fact, it is better.
Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch is the ultimate homicide detective. Long retired from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) he is periodically brought out of the moth balls to work unsolved decades-old murder cases, or in cop parlance, cold cases. Bosch is a detective’s detective. The only thing he hates more than crime, is unsolved crime. His bottomless capacity for victim empathy is what motivates him. He knows his craft. He takes nothing for granted. He goes over the details endlessly, thinking that he might have missed something, or somehow a thought might spring to mind that might reveal a potential lead. The way he meticulously goes over the murder book is how we lawyers should go over the case file, or at the very least, witness statements, investigative reports, and expert reports.
Of late, Connelly has Bosh joining LAPD detective Renée Ballard. Younger and with just as much of a rough edge and disdain for internal politics as Bosch, she is cut from the same cloth. There’s mutual respect. Bosch is respectful but not always a team player, opting to go it alone whenever it suits him. Ballard is exceptionally confident in her skills, but one senses a wee bit of insecurity when Bosch is in the picture.
Michael Connelly’s Desert Star delivers the goods. Usually with more than one cold case to solve, the detective duo relentlessly keep the pace going. Momentum. Always momentum. As a newspaper reporter, Connelly covered the crime beat in LA, so he knows the ins and outs of police work. He knows how a crime scene should be processed, how evidence needs to be collected, how essential science is in solving crimes – provided the experts are qualified and the tests are performed properly. Hard to pick up any one of his nearly 40 novels and not see the latest scientific methods being applied. This point is worth highlighting. Whether you are prosecuting or defending in national or international courts, you cannot be successful unless you immerse yourself in the relevant science involved in the case. Just as Bosch and Ballard use experts to school them on what to look for, what scientific testing can and cannot achieve, how certain evidence must be collected and preserved to avoid contamination and false or unreliable results, you need to become mini experts. This is not something trivial to be delegated to co-counsel, or worst yet, to leave to the legal assistants. Counsel cannot rely on being spoon-fed by non-experts, nor should he or she assume that co-counsel or staff – however competent and experienced – can adequately handle this aspect of the case. It takes a team effort, but there is nothing like rolling up your sleeves and getting into the weeds – along with your trusty staff.
In Desert Star we meet a Bosch willing to cross the line when he thinks it’s for a righteous cause. He knows when he is about to cross the line. He may have been reticent to do so before he retired, now in his senior years, he takes it as a given that lines will and must be crossed when necessary. Ballard is much more by-the-book. Characterizing her as Bosch’s moral compass would be too much. Bosch is not lacking in moral certitude. If anything. But it is this certitude that occasionally gets in the way of following the rules and respecting a suspect’s or accused’ rights. White and not so white lies are rationalized. We still pull for our hero detective, but cannot help but be surprised, even disappointed.
Ethical dilemmas are commonplace in what we do. Investigators for the prosecution side are willing to fudge, manipulate, confabulate. They may not come out and tell the witness how to reconcile discrepancies and inconsistencies but they as much as do so by leading the witness. Some on the defence are no better. Whether such transgressions are intentional or accidental at first, over time they become habit-forming. The line gets stepped on so much that it is no longer visible. Worst yet, justification becomes an art form. Verbal gymnastics and logical fallacies lead to a perverse sense of entitlement and malleable situational ethics. More on this below.
John Grisham’s protagonists tend to have the occasional ethical lapse. A master story-teller, Grisham follows a predictable format. Endings are far too predictable, but in getting to them there are enough turns and twists to keep the reader sufficiently interested. His prose is simple – short sentences, plane language, conversational. Nicely informing the reader on the surroundings and lifestyle of the residents, he develops the characters in detail early on. Whereas Leonard informs us of the character’s personality through dialogue, Grisham sketches them out then fills in the lines, leaving little to the imagination. His characters internalize almost excessively.
Where Grisham excels is in forecasting social issues that are on the edge of being the next big thing. Almost all the lawyers involved are on or over the line, with plenty of unethical and unprofessional conduct to go around. Protagonists are just as prone to intentional ethical laps as the villains. In this respect, The Boys from Biloxi is vintage Grisham.
The story evolves over three generations of two Croatian families living in Biloxi, Mississippi. Biloxi, which boasts its beautiful beaches, pulsating casinos, colorful nightlife, and exotic dens of iniquity, also has a vibrant Croatian community. Yes, you guessed it. While the two families shared a hunger for the American dream, they go about achieving it in different and ultimately colliding ways.
Grisham’s prosecutors and defense lawyers and judges can at times seem over-the-top in their unethical and unprofessional ways. Having modest firsthand experience in how some small courts in the deep south dispense the business of justice, Grisham is not that far off. What I experienced some 25 plus years ago (nothing changes too fast in the South where “tradition” is the excuse for doing things as they have more or less always been done), some prosecutors were virtually getting away with just about anything, while some defense lawyers – as a justification for leveling the playing field – were not averse to resorting to questionable means themselves.
The Boys from Biloxi is a treasure trove of unethical and unprofessional conduct. The main judge is also not above the fray. The go-to defense lawyer where the evidence is overwhelming against the accused is as imaginative as he is bold in stepping way over the line – whether it is with witnesses, jurors, the client, the prosecution, or the court. His often not-so-subtle techniques in gaming the process, lead the prosecution to engage in it’s own tit-for-tat ethical transgressions. Ex parte communications abound between the not-so-impartial judge and the prosecution.
Grisham, who is a very good and ethical lawyer (and on the right side in abolishing the death penalty) robustly takes creative license in spinning his yarn. No need to get worked up; he is just concocting an interesting plot. I get it. But he also offers lots of ethical lessons even if that is not his intent. And this is the added value of The Boys from Biloxi.
Seeing the well-intentioned but ethically misguided Bosch in Desert Star and the ethically challenged prosecution and defense in The Boys from Biloxi cross way over the line – even though the cause may appear righteous in their justifications – made me think of a post on ethics I wrote several years ago: Response to comments on ethics enforcement inequality: the Superman vs. Batman dichotomy.
In pursuing their respective visions of justice Superman hews strictly to the rules as an essential element of his mission; while Batman believes the ultimate righteousness of his position gives him leave to disregard those rules as he sees fit. I never much paid attention to this dichotomy of our two crime-busting heroes until true Philadelphia Lawyer and my good friend, Alan Yatvin, pointed it out to me when I was trying to make a point that defense misconduct cannot be justified as a response to perceived or real prosecutorial misconduct.
Otto Penzler’s Golden Age Bibliomysteries, is a collection of fourteen tales by thirteen authors from the Golden Age of the mystery genre. Penzler is an aficionado extraordinaire when it comes to mystery fiction and all its sub-genres. Bibliomysteries is a sub-genre where:
“crime involves rare books, or if a book or books are the primary macguffin (another word not in the dictionary or accepted by spell-check). If much of the action is set in a bookshop or a library, it is a bibliomystery, just as it is if a major character is a bookseller or librarian. A collector of rare books counts, and often a scholar or academic working with rare books, manuscripts, or archives may be included. Publishers? Yes., if their jobs are integral to the plot. Authors? Tricky. If they just happen to write a books (and it is amazing to not the number of dictional mystery writers who stumble onto corpses) and get involved in mystery, it is a borderline call. If the nature of their work brings them into a mystery, or their books are a vital clue in the solution, they make the cut.” (Introduction, p.2)
This definition clues you in on what to expect. The writing styles are as distinct as the storylines, characters, pace, and quirks of each of these who-done-it mysteries. Though relatively short, the stories are packed with nuance. As a prelude to each story, Penzler offers a short biography of the author. Though most names may not be familiar to non-mystery buffs, it is fascinating to see just how prolific and wide-ranging these authors were in their heyday.
I recommend this collection of mystery gems not just because it is a fun read with your morning coffee or while lounging on a beach bed before and after a cooling off dip, but also because of the quality of the writing. As I’ve noted, much can be purloined from novels and short stories and plays, and film and artwork, for use in what we do as advocates. An anthology offers variety.
As our vacations wind down, I urge you to indulge yourself in any or all four books – and maybe take a few notes for when you go back to work.
Enjoy!
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