Publisher's Weekly Review
Bestseller Fairstein (Killer Heat) has put together a stellar anthology, presented by the Mystery Writers of America, that will appeal both to contemporary noir fans and devotees of Law & Order. The late Edward Hoch starts things off nicely with "The Secret Session," a concise whodunit centering on judicial corruption at the appellate level. In Barbara Parker's deliciously creepy "A Clerk's Life," a put-upon law clerk for a major Florida firm stumbles on two murders. Joel Goldman highlights the ethical challenges of criminal defense work in "Knife Fight," as does Eileen Dunbaugh in "The Letter." By way of counterpoint, Michele Martinez's "The Mother" and Morley Swingle's "Hard Blows" dramatize the challenges prosecutors encounter, even when the defendants they charge are, in fact, guilty. The consistently high quality of the 22 selections will lead many to hope the MWA will sponsor more volumes in this vein. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
The third themed anthology from the Mystery Writers of America (Death Do Us Part, 2006, etc.) offers a collection of mostly new tales of legal intrigue memorable for their variety of approaches to the formula. The most surprising feature of courtroom drama is how many different kinds of courtrooms can be involved. For Jo Dereske, the venue is a parole hearing; for Kate Gallison, it's the Salem witch trials; for John Walter Putre, it's an ecclesiastical trial for heresy. Phyllis Cohen, Anita Page, Joseph Wallace and Angela Zeman all present rough justice outside the courtroom, and officers of the court turn out to have feet of clay in stories by Edward D. Hoch, Joel Goldman, Eileen Dunbaugh, Barbara Parker, Twist Phelan and especially S.J. Rozan. James Grippando provides the most original premise: a civil suit brought by viatical investors when the holder of the life-insurance policy they've bought at a discount turns out not to be fatally ill after all. Paul Levine covers the most ground, veering from domestic comedy to Hitchcockian horror in nine pages. Leigh Lundin's examination of euthanasia is the most touching entry. The stories by Daniel J. Hale and Charlie Drees have multiple twists; Morley Swingle delivers a single well-planned twist; Diana Hansen-Young's twist comes a little too soon; and Michele Mart"nez and editor Fairstein, in the only reprint, seem to get by with no twists at all. No new classics, but plenty of evidence why the formula continues to hook readers. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Courtroom drama has consumed the American psyche since Perry Mason (the O. J. trial didn't hurt, either). In this terrific collection, 21 of today's top legal-thriller writers present a small taste of what makes the courtroom setting so appealing. All the contributors are members of the Mystery Writers of America, and most are best-selling authors. While the courtroom is most definitely the star, many stories feature action outside the judge's four walls and involving peripheral characters, including clerks in Barbara Parker's A Clerk's Life and debt collectors and bail bondsmen in Diana Hansen-Young's The Flashlight Game. In others, while the setting might be a courtroom, the drama is more about the characters than the crime, as in Paul Levine's Mom Is My Co-Counsel. The entries range from funny and quirky to dark and disturbing, but, taken as a whole, they make a thoroughly entertaining work of crime fiction.--Wilkens, Mary Frances Copyright 2009 Booklist