Open and Shut
 David Rosenfelt
 (Reviewer - Narayan Radhakrishnan)
 2002 Warner Books
  ISBN: 089296748X

Maverick lawyer Andy Carpenter takes the appeals case of a young black man on the Death Row which Andy's father a venerated D.A. had prosecuted.

Sr. Reviewer - Narayan Radhakrishnan writes:

David Rosenfelt's debut work is a marvelous legal thriller with a strong & likeable protagonist -- the maverick lawyer -- Andy Carpenter. Open and Shut is a mystery & a suspense thriller, & is as good as any Grisham work.

Andy Carpenter is a talented & successful attorney with a great reputation as a trial lawyer. His father, Nelson Carpenter, a former District Attorney, asks Andy to take an appeal case of a young black man, Willie Miller, accused of the murder of a lady journalist. Nelson himself had prosecuted Miller a couple of years back, & before Andy could get any information on the case or the reason why his father wants to defend Miller, Nelson dies -- leaving behind lot of unanswered questions.

Suddenly Andy is the inheritor of a huge fortune that he never knew his father possessed. He also finds an old photo of his father & a few friends who he feels has a close connection with the Willie Miller case. With few clues & little knowledge of the background, Carpenter takes a seemingly airtight case & what follows is courtroom drama at its best with Andy finding out chilling truths & opening closed secrets -- that were best left undisturbed.

Open and Shut is an impressive legal thriller. However, the theme of the work (lawyer finding a dark secret of his dead father) is one that has been dealt with in two other legal thrillers published this year, John Grisham's The Summons & Stephen L. Carter's The Emperor of Ocean Park. For so long authors have been after the ‘alcoholic/disillusioned lawyers' (eg.- David Cray's Bad Lawyer, Barry Reed's The Verdict, J. F. Freedman's Disappearance, etc.) Now I see a shift in focus toward the theme of ‘a past secret discovery.' with Michael Salinas' White Lies being another notable example in recent years.

Rosenfelt delivers a taut thriller, & it is impossible to believe that this is a debut work. Carpenter has all the makings of a series protagonist, & I wouldn't be surprised to find a ‘Carpenter Thriller' occupying the bestseller racks in a couple of years.

A fantastic debut!
(07/07/02)

Narayan
2002©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