The Verdict by Nick Stone

My wonderful younger sister gave me a 3-month subscription to the Book Of The Month club - and this is the first installment from that club.  It was a great vacation reading book!!

Terry Flynt is a great everyman - the guy who is trying to improve his life after messing up at the bottom of a bottle of booze.  So to start over he is working as a law clerk in a pushy and semi-questionable law firm.

All that changes when his old best friend is accused of murder.  Now that sentence may make you think that he is also a down-on-his-look Londoner.  But - you would be wrong.  Instead, Vernon James is someone - REALLY someone! He is rich and powerful and a little shady and an accused murderer.

So - it seems like Terry Flynt is in the best place to defend his friend. Which would be true if they were still friends, which they aren't.

This is a cat and mouse game of lies and hidden agenda and Londoners and foreigners is intriguing and involved. I enjoyed all of it -didn't quite have it figured out - which always makes me happy!

Vacation Book #2
Book of the Month Book #1

House Rules by Jodi Picoult

Picoult continues to provide something to think and think and think about. How does she do that??

This was our March book club book and I am just finishing it right now...I know a little slow, but it was well worth it!

This is the story of Jacob, his mother Emma and his younger brother Theo. It is also the story of how a family copes with an all-consuming, life altering, diagnosis. Jacob has Asperger's. He is brilliant and unable to connect, obsessed and childlike all at the precise moment. His meltdowns span of shirts with buttons and eating the wrong colored food on a specific day and have torn apart his family. Mom is ultra-focused on Jacob and Theo breaks into 'normal' family houses.

Into this mix come Jess Oglivy. She is Jacob's social skills tutor and the object of Jacob's love. She is also found dead in a culvert behind the house she was staying in wrapped in Jacob's quilt.

I do have to say I had this figured out way before the end - I think Picoult wanted you do to that though. The purpose of the book was not figuring out what happened to Jess - instead it was figuring out what happens to a family who suspects one of their own. The story is about the trial of Jacob for Jess's murder.

How does a parent who has forfeited her life handle the idea her son may be a murderer? What about the father who deserted them? How does the legal system deal with an man with Asperger's on the stand - one who needs sensory breaks and can't stand loose hair around a woman's shoulder or the sound and sight of a crumpled paper?

In typical Picoult fashion the reader is drawn into a world too painful to really understand, one where surprising moments of pure joy and peace appear and the bad guys are not always the bad guys.

I loved it!!! Read it!

Theodore Boone, Kid Lawyer by John Grisham

I really wanted to like this one. I like John Grisham. But, the things I like about Grisham - minute details about the law process, characters built with lots of background and history, don't work in a young adult book. Or rather the lack of those writing elements sort of make the story fall flat.

The premise is a good one.
Theodore, son of two lawyers and nephew of a third, LOVES the law and all the trappings. He has his own tiny office in his parent's office, is on first name basis with everyone from the secretaries to the security guard to the most important judge at the court house, and hands out free law advice to any fellow student who asks. His advice seems to be sound and based on a vast knowledge of the system and unlimited access to web info through passwords and codes available from his parents.

So far, so good.

There is a huge murder trial in town - a husband is accused of murdering his wife. But, the evidence is all circumstantial. Theodore is able to get tickets for his government class to attend the opening day arguments through all his connections.

Then Theodore is told a secret. Can you hear the ominous piano music in the background as this happens?

This secret is so big the entire trial will hinge on it. But, unlike surprise witnesses on TV (you know that isn't really real) Theodore must play by the rules. He must decide what to do with the information - it could be the difference between a conviction or an acquittal.

The most frustrating part of this book is the end...
Let me just say SERIES...

So.
My vote is not over the top. It's interesting, quick and will catch those kids who enjoy all the law and order shows on TV, but it's isn't his best!