Sudden Death
David Rosenfelt
(Reviewer - Narayan Radhakrishnan)
2005 Mysterious Press
ISBN: 0892967838

Maverick lawyer Andy Carpenter takes the case of a football star accused of murder.

Senior Associate Reviewer Narayan Radhakrishnan writes:

If you live in Los Angeles, & if you are proud of your city, well, you will hate Sudden Death. Why? Because the novel starts like this:
     “I certainly haven’t had any preconceived notions about the place, other than the fact that the people here are insincere, draft-dodging, drug-taking, money grubbing, breast-mplanting, out-of-touch, pate-eating, pompous, Lakers-loving, let’s do-lunching elitist scumbags.”

But this same sentence drew me to the book -- an interesting start I thought -- & what followed is more interesting stuff that kept me hooked to the pages right from page 1 to page 306.

I have been following the trials & tribulations of Andy Carpenter, the lawyer protagonist of this work & the mystery series, ever since I read Open And Shut a couple of years back. & David Rosenfelt proved that he is not a one-book-wonder, when he followed with two more exciting murder mysteries First Degree & Bury The Lead. A lawyer defending a football star accused of murder -- well, that's a plotline exploited by many particularly since the O.J. Simpson trial.

Andy Carpenter is not your regular attorney hero. He is a maverick, & knows exactly to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. He is outspoken, brash &, in other words, a regular smartass. But that said, he is also darn good lawyer & there are many who would pay big bucks for him to defend them.

This time round, Andy Carpenter is called to defend a football star accused of murder. The star faces an uphill task & it will take all of Andy’s lawyering skills to get him free. In the midst of all this Carpenter also has to deal with an evil drug lord, whose agenda is to permanently oust the lawyer from the face of the earth. What follows is legal thriller action at its best, ending in a superb finish.

David Rosenfelt sure has a carved a neat niche in the legal thriller genre -- & next to Brian Haig & D.W. Buffa -- he is probably the only author to make it big after the phenomenal success of John Grisham & Scott Turow.

Sudden Death is a good read & for the fans of the series, a must read.
(06/19/05)

Narayan
2005©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