California's surfing lawyer, J. Shepard, who debuted in DeCure's Reef Dance
(2001), has a way of letting his altruistic impulses and a penchant for irregular procedures land him in trouble. In this, his second engaging outing, Shepard agrees to be the volunteer monitor for attorney Dale Bleeker, who inspired him to take up the law and is now on the skids after a bad run of personal and professional problems. Juggling his shaky personal relationships with fiancée Carmen and her Down Syndrome brother, Albert, who have recently moved in with him, already has Shepard scrambling. Trying to add Bleeker and a wealthy but difficult client to the household may be too much. But that's what Shepard does as he tries to protect the client, who's often incoherent, and extract Bleeker from a scheme that threatens to ruin them both. DeCure takes plenty of whacks at the California legal system and its overseers within the profession and in the state legislature, but reserves the most venom for those who abuse the system at the expense of their clients. The skillfully drawn supporting characters, who include Shepard's Rottweiler, Max, help to make Shepard, whose many parts don't always add up to a well-integrated whole, more appealing than he might otherwise be—and a series hero to watch. (Dec. 8)
