And Nothing But the Truth

Despite a promising premise, Friedman's debut novel-about a Pennsylvania lawyer who tries to apply the lessons of the legal past to a contemporary embezzling case-lapses into tedium. The narrator is a legal lone wolf whose quiet life in a solo firm is disrupted by the arrival of Erika Williams, a beautiful finance administrator at a local university who has been accused of embezzling $50,000 from the school. The legal eagle agrees to take the case, but when he investigates the details he's puzzled by his client's cool attitude and the weakness of the prosecutor's case. As he delves further, the defense counsel turns to his passion for history, trying to solve the case using clues from what he believes to be a parallel incident, a 19th-century legal episode involving the fate of a runaway slave that he learns about after finding an old letter from a Virginia lawyer. Friedman, himself a Pennsylvania lawyer, writes serviceable prose, paced well, and his curmudgeonly protagonist is likable enough. But he telegraphs the resolution, belabors basic legal material and, crucially, never firmly establishes the legal link between present and past-flaws that render his tale unconvincing and, ultimately, no better than average. (Sept.)