The Indictment

Reed (The Verdict; The Choice) has written a well-plotted but curiously flat novel about a possible grand jury indictment against a prominent doctor suspected of murdering a young woman. When Boston attorney Dan Sheridan agrees to defend Dr. Christopher Dillard, he pits himself against a DA with an eye on a U.S. Senate seat and a shady Irish kingmaker who wants the entire case buried. Sheridan also becomes an unwitting target of an FBI sting operation against local lawyers suspected of criminal ties, even as he becomes romantically involved with the agent who is working undercover as one of his secretaries. Matters come to a head during the grand jury hearing: because such a hearing prohibits defense witnesses, Sheridan and his client are forced to watch while a detailed case is built against them. Reed explains the quirky rules governing grand juries in an awkward prologue; elsewhere, the narrative proceeds at a brisk but metronomically even pace that fails to generate suspense and excitement. Nevertheless, Reed, himself a Boston attorney, knows his courtrooms and the city, which he engagingly presents here as a stateside suburb of Dublin in which everybody who is anybody is Irish. (Oct.)