Skin in the Game

Atlanta criminal attorney R. P. Finch, for his fiction debut, mixes the Mafia, quantum physics, and legal intrigue into a sometimes unwieldy cross-genre comedy. Nerdy lawyer Eben Burnham, in his first year at his family’s Wall Street law firm, Burnham & Wood, finds himself relying on his savvy officemate Wolf Lupo’s street smarts. Trying to expand his horizons, Eben begins dating junior associate Ellie Van Rensselaer, who becomes interested in Eben’s dream of a nanotech-oriented practice. Clay, her uncle, initially agrees to provide the capital backing, but when his finances fall short of his good intentions, Wolf rescues the project by going to his shadowy associate Tito Venga, a mobbed-up strip club owner. Addi-tional obstacles arise, however, in the form of slimy senior partner Huntington Harrow, who’s determined to get in on Eben’s action, and the CIA and FBI, which have decided for “national security” reasons to put the kibosh on the startup. The humor never lets up, as these eclectic, unlikely factions jostle for power, though Finch’s spoof eventually resolves in a disappointingly flat conclusion. (Apr.)