The Tenth Case [Rilegato]

Joseph Teller is a first time author with an experience in law enforcement and legal matters...and it shows in THE TENTH CASE. This courtroom drama is packed with detail and extremely drawn out. That's not a bad thing. If you enjoy the banter and the "objection" "sustained" kind of story...you'll be set.

Teller has written his PRESUMED INNOCENT. If you remember that book, we saw a crime in which evidence pointed VERY strongly to one person, and the book showed the case getting more and more grim on virtually every page. Then right at the very end, the "truth" was revealed and the reader was shocked. THE TENTH CASE tries to tread similar ground.

We meet attorney Harrison J. Walker...known to everyone as Jaywalker. He's apparently a brilliant defense attorney who almost never loses. Widely considered a great legal mind, a first-rate summation "artist" and also a loose cannon. In fact, in the first chapter, he's censured by a review board for his courtroom antics...but is given time to finish up his caseload first. He has ten cases, and the tenth is the murder trial of Samara Tannenbaum.

Samara stands accused of murdering her husband, the billionaire Barry Tannenbaum. Samara was a cocktail waitress/retired prostitute in Las Vegas, barely out of her teens, when Barry swept her away and made her his wife. Some years later, their marriage was a broken shell. The couple argued loudly just a few days after Samara took out a gigantic, short-term life insurance policy on her husband. And then Barry turns up stabbed to death, and the knife and other evidence is found in Samara's apartment. As more evidence piles up, we frankly can't see HOW Samara is not guilty. But naturally, we've read a million books like this and seen a million TV shows, so we know she can't be guilty. A surprise must be in store.

So it's a novel about our journey from complete despair over the case to a satisfying surprise ending. And Teller has concocted a pretty decent twist or two for the end. I'm sure his inspiration to write this book came first from an "ah ha" moment when he came up with the idea for the end...and then he worked backwards.

The book is breezy and easy to read. We're taken by the hand through the case, by being shown Jaywalker's thought-processes in extreme detail. While I appreciated the detail, a little less would have also allowed me to say the book was fast-paced. It was not as brisk as it should have been, given the casual style in which it was written. Teller has the makings of a good genre writer, and based on the sneak preview of his next book that is provided at the end of THE TENTH CASE, he clearly plans to make Jaywalker a recurring character.

I liked Jaywalker fairly well. Yes, he's a bit too brilliant and a bit too much of a maverick...but he's a clear thinker and we can't help but root for him. We like the characters he likes. But in my opinion, Teller made a big mistake by NOT presenting the book in the first person. He throws in so many asides directed right to the reader, that it becomes a bit jarring...a bit amateurish. If the book had been in the first person, then Jaywalker could have shared these tidbits and diversions with us in a very natural manner. Instead, we just feel that Teller is commenting on a variety of unimportant items and pulling us out of the story.

I still marginally recommend the book if you like courtroom intrigue and a decent mystery. I might even read the next Jaywalker novel when it arrives, just in the hopes that the nice plotting Teller is capable of is finally matched by the quality of the writing.

THE TENTH CASE starts with two conceits that make the book seem less serious than it really is. First off, there's the protagonist's name: Jaywalker, which seems patently absurd. What self-respecting lawyer would willingly adopt the name of a petty crime? Secondly, there's Jaywalker's status, -- on the verge of suspension because of his habit of playing fast and loose with the rules of courtroom procedure (and because he was caught in flagrante with a VERY thankful client at the courthouse).

Facing a prolonged hiatus from his lifelong career, Jaywalker requests that he be allowed to finish out his open cases. The board limits him to ten, but it's a Scheherazade bargain -- the tenth case is a murder trial that will delay his suspension for months, perhaps years.

Though he will admit (to readers) that he isn't averse to playing tricks and grandstanding to win, his approach works. Where other defense attorneys trumpet 50% winning records, Jaywalker wins 90% of his cases--and it's because he is determined to win at all costs that he is successful, and in trouble.

The tenth case involves an Anna Nicole Smith-like defendant, a beautiful young woman who willingly embraces her origins as trailer trash. After escaping a childhood of abuse and destitution, she fell in love with and married one of the richest men on the planet, forty years her senior.

Eight years into the relationship, which is now more of a marriage of convenience, Barry Tannenbaum is murdered, and the only viable suspect is his widow, the alluring Samara, known as Sam.

It's obvious that Joseph Teller spent decades as a defense attorney. Parts of the novel read like a trial transcript, and Jaywalker (via Teller) reveals the inner workings of a murder trial with the gleeful panache of someone who has been there and done that.

Jaywalker is a delightfully flawed character, a widow with a strained relationship with his daughter and an addiction to Kalhua. He is obviously enamored of his final client, but strong enough to avoid falling into the trap of sleeping with her, perhaps.

The farther the trial proceeds, though, the less likely it seems that Jaywalker can pull off a miracle. He's not certain that his client is telling him the truth, and he desperately doesn't want to go out a loser.

Jaywalker could be a distant cousin of Michael Connelly's lawyer, Mickey Haller. It is because he is such an engaging character that the book works as well as it does. The ending gambit plays like something out of a Perry Mason episode, and strains the plot's credibility (quite honestly, the final reveal is a trainwreck that doesn't stand up to close scrutiny) but Teller has himself a winner with Jaywalker and I look forward to BRONX JUSTICE, the next book featuring his delightful protagonist.

The book has an interesting premise. A defense lawyer with a reputation for bending the rules is being suspended from practising law for 3 years. Prior to the suspension taking effect, Jaywalker (the lawyer's nickname) is allowed to complete 10 final cases that he is already working on. While the first 9 are not complex, the last involves a young woman named Samara on trial for the murder of her husband, who happens to be considerable older (enough so to be her grandfather) and one of the wealthiest men in the United States. Thus people attribute the term "gold digger" to her - one who marries for money. To make matters worse, Samara, who is a former prostitute, has every piece of evidence stacked against her, despite her insistence of her innocence.

The question remains, then, can the renegade yet brilliant lawyer somehow win this impossible-to-win case? Also, if Samara hadn't killed her husband, who did and why frame her so well for it?

Style-wise, I enjoyed the book, presenting a somewhat unique format for the Q and A in the court room. More interestingly, Teller (the author) was himself a former DEA agent and defense lawyer - that old adage "write about what you know" shines through here, as Teller clearly knows his stuff. I also liked the way he explained more complicated legal points and terms in easy-to-understand ways.

As for the plot, it keeps wanting to smack me upside the head and say "Basic Instinct". Still, that was a movie that also left me wondering at the end and I like that - make the viewer, or reader in this case - do some active thinking, rather than just being a passive spectator. I knocked a star off the review to give it a "mere" 4 because I had a strong feeling about the identity of the killer about halfway through the book.

Nonetheless, I highly recommend this book, especially to those who enjoy legal dramas and good old "whodunnit"s!