Like Buffa's other legal thrillers starring Portland, Ore., attorney Joseph Antonelli (The Judgment, etc.), this one has a first-class premise: a U.S. senator has been shot and killed in his car in San Francisco, and a young black man, wounded by the police while apparently trying to escape the scene, is accused. Enter Antonelli, brought in by an elderly San Francisco lawyer who wants to help the boy for his own mysterious reasons. It soon becomes clear that because of the political implications—the senator was a likely presidential candidate—and the victim's local network of powerful friends and rivals, no one wants anything to do with the case. When a new acquaintance of Antonelli's, a former KGB man who says he has dynamite information on the senator's past, is blown up in his office, the stakes are dramatically raised. Taut, well-paced scenes of Antonelli in court and investigating the senator's death alternate with long, meandering passages describing outings with his brother, Bobby and a new woman in his life, the glamorous and enigmatic Marissa. In the end, the trial reaches an improbable conclusion, Antonelli reacts out of character, and the book's resolution comes out of nowhere in a plot twist that's more sleight of hand than organic to the tale. It's a disappointing windup to a book that offers some strong scenes and characterizations. Agent, Wendy Sherman. (July 1)
Forecast:The author has been building a following, but this outing is unlikely to increase it.
