Equivocal Death
 Amy Gutman
 (Reviewer - Narayan Radhakrishnan)
 2003 Little, Brown & Co.
 ISBN: 0446609056

A naive & beautiful lawyer investigates two mysterious deaths in her powerful law firm.

Sr. Reviewer Narayan Radhakrishnan writes:

Lawyer-author Amy Gutman's debut legal work Equivocal Death is a good murder mystery. I wouldn't call it great, theme-wise it's just a regular whodunit, but where Equivocal Death scores is in the area of suspense. The author's skillful & suspense-filled narration really deserves to be appreciated.

Brilliant, naive & ambitious rookie lawyer Kate Paine is thrilled to be working in the prestigious firm of Samson & Mills. She is assigned the task of defending a publisher of a raunchy sex magazine, on charges of sexual harassment. Paine delves into her task -- but the brutal murder of partner, Madeline Waters, followed by the supposed suicide of senior partner Carter Mills leaves Paine unnerved.

To add more misery, Paine is sexually abused by her client, Chuck Thorpe. It seems that Mills had in fact killed Waters & then, out of remorse, committed suicide. Paine refuses to believe the same & pursues her own investigative track. What follows is nail-biting suspense with a wonderful, wonderful finish.

As a whodunit, the book provides a fantastic read. But as a legal thriller, I feel Equivocal Death is not up to the mark. Though a perfect legal setting is there -- what is an attorney supposed to do when the client she defends (here for sexual harassment) commits the same abuse on the attorney herself? How can she maintain an effective complaint against the violator without compromising the attorney-client relation? A side story focusing on this aspect, would have enhanced the ‘legal-fictionality’, as seen in many of the legal thrillers of Richard North Patterson, like, Eyes of a Child & Degree of Guilt.

Gutman has the flair for narrative keeping the suspense riveting up to the end -- & I am sure we can expect more fantastic books from this lawyer-author.

More from Amy Gutman: The Anniversary
(08/10/03)

Narayan
2003©Narayan Radhakrishnan
A RebeccasReads.Com Sr. Associate Reviewer

Reviewer's Bio:
I am a 26 years old lawyer practicing in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India. Along with my legal practice, I have finished post-graduate studies for both Business Law & Human Rights. I am a self proclaimed numero-uno legal thriller lover & am the proud owner of all of Grisham's & Turow's novels. I enjoy John Mortimer's Rumpole & relish an occasional Martini & a rare Scot(ch)t-oline with a Patterson on the side.

My work A FICTION OF LAW is now about 500 pages in length & features 500 lawyer authors & 2000 legal thrillers covering a 300 year period - inclusive of entries from the USA, UK, Asia, Europe, China, Middle East etc. Still in search of a publisher.
www.keralatourism.org