The Good Lawyer: A Legal Thriller Inspired By A True Story (The Good Lawyer Series Book 1)

I just discovered this author and I can’t wait to read more. What a great book. There are some twists and turns that I did not expect but loved the ending.

This author of this story is a practicing attorney and this is a fast action story with four sub-plots, which intertwine, leaving it a page turner. The protagonist was Nick Mannino, an American Italian and a Legal Aid Attorney who practiced in the Bronx Criminal Court. Each day the Legal Aids took so many cases to defend and Nick had been given the case of Peter Guevara charged with sexual abuse of three young boys under the age of ten. Because of the nature of the charge, the newspapers followed it closely and although Peter claimed loud and long that he was innocent, Nick knew he would have a struggle to win. So far he had had seven trials and seven wins and he didn't want his record broken.Nick had an uncle Rocco who was top dog under a ruling Mafia of New York. He had earned the right to be that in that when he was a young boy, he killed a man who was abusing a female relative, ended up in the worse juvenile detention center in New York where the juvenile gangs ruled the roost. When they tried to attack Rocco, he defended himself with such violence, that he won the battle and the respect of the boys. Soon boy were joining him like a gang and as he became stronger, he set down rules of fairness and enforced them and for the first time, the detention center worked as it should. When he was released at age eighteen, he became a member of this mafia and soon was his first in command. Rocco's first and only love was murdered by a rival suitor and thereafter the only person Rocco could love was his nephew, Nick, for whom he would do anything.During the time Nick was working to defend Peter, he met a female attorney, Eleanor, whom he fell in love with, but felt inadequate because she came from a famous southern family in Atlanta and he was a poor nobody.During this same time, there was a rapist who had raped four women and was called Spiderman because he entered apartments through the window after repelling down from the roof. None of the women had ever seen his face because he attacked when they were asleep, flipped them over, bound their hands and assaulted them. During these times, Nick was given a man by the name of Johnson to defend, whom the police believed to be the Spiderman because he was found with the locket of a baby who, along with its mother and father, were found murdered. The father was a policeman and the policemen had on the side judged Johnson to be guilty and although Nick believed him to be innocent, before he could get him into protection, John was found murdered in the jail.These subplots twist and wind around each other and it isn't until well in the story that Nick begins to discover new angles. This author writes with the freshness of Grisham's first novels and this story is extremely entertaining, has several mysteries to solve and the depth of character is truly dramatic and vivid. I highly recommend this novel.

I was as taken in by this story as I am by John Grisham legal thrillers, though I'm not sure why. Was I just in the mood for a legal thriller?I did not read through all 1800 reviews before writing; if I duplicate someone's comments, that's the reason.What I liked was the juxtaposition of character and story, even though the characters were only marginally well developed. I liked the story line; I liked the description of what and why the narrator did what he did. I envision an idealistic legal aid lawyer, really wanting to help people, and being frustrated by, for example, a previous lawyer's recommendation to a guilty plea or a plea bargain that might later generate miscarriages of justice. I could sympathize with the frustration he felt at being unable to do what he considered best.There were things to dislike, too. Apparently, the author had a clouded picture of his characters: at location 1080 on my Kindle, I read "In heels, even half heels, Brenda was an imposing figure, and she was noticeably gaining weight with each passing week." but at location 1699 I read "Brenda was about to leave but offered to stay and type it. As I hovered over her I couldn't help but notice how much weight she'd lost." Ignoring the atrocious use of commas, the two descriptions leave one wondering just what Brenda looks like. A story editor should have caught that. With the exception of Uncle Rocco, I had trouble visualizing any of the characters, and the surprise reveal was, to me, unbelievable.A story editor would also have recommended correction of the description of the .38 - to all intents and purposes a caliber found only in revolvers - with a silencer and safety, which are normally found only on semi-automatic pistols. To a gun owner, this is like telling someone to engage the safety on their Glock; it's so patently wrong as to be laughable and makes the reader wonder what else is poorly researched. Yes, there are some schools of criminal who prefer revolvers because they don't leave casings behind, and others who prefer silenced firearms, which aren't "silent" at all, but it's important to know which is which.The manuscript could have been corrected by a good copy editor, even as the story points could have benefited from a story editor. At location 1448 we learn of "the reigns of power"; at 1481 we find "tables ... used as security canvas." instead of "canvass"; at 3174 there's apparently a missing "not" in the sentence "...I hated them but dared say so for fear of crippling his confidence."The narrator never clears up what he'll be doing after he "left the practice of criminal law forever behind ..." Rather a shame, as he appears to be an excellent criminal attorney, and other aspects of law are very, very different. It's not like he'll completely leave it, with Eleanor a DA. There seemed to be some loose ends, even with a quick running-out-of-time-here's-how-the-story-ends finish.

A story that I questioned myself as to why I acquired it as I don’t like defence lawyers.I understand that everyone is entitled to a defence but I question the honesty of some lawyers (as we saw in the book) who make decisions that perhaps are merely to maintain their own winning streaks.The story is very slow and a bit boring until about halfway through but it’s worth persevering.Having said that I did enjoy the story and particularly the scruples the main character had and questions he asked of himself when he knew he got it wrong.Despite mafia featuring strongly I liked the family aspect of the story which overall was quite predictable from early on and there were no shocks or unexpected twists.Will I look for follow ups to this book. Very likely given how the story ended.

This book started off reasonably well, but deteriorated over time with ever more ridiculous plot devices being introduced and leading to a climax that was more amusing than thrilling. There were problems with the protagonist as well, with constant irrational mood swings and blatant stupidity when presented with certain situations that someone with the IQ of a chocolate frog would be able to understand and react to. And, finally, a pet irritation of mine: if you are going to introduce a gun into the plot, spend at least ten seconds researching the weapon on the Internet so that what you say is at least faintly believable. In this case, the wimpy protagonist is given a pistol towards the end of the book. It is described as a '.38', which logically means it's a revolver. Somebody then helpfully fits a silencer to it, which is completely pointless as you can't suppress (technically it's a suppressor, not a silencer) a revolver, and then he forgets to take off the safety catch, which of course a revolver doesn't have. Overall, not impressed.

We are sometime in the 1980’s and Nick Maninno is a young lawyer starting out at the bottom defending prospective felons for the Legal Aid Society in the South Bronx. He’s good, but his growing reputation includes success with “sicko sex cases” with the latest not guilty verdict leaving a villain still on the streets, the victim suicidal and Maninno with his head in his hands.His new batch of cases includes more promising, if high profile, material – a school aide accused of molesting three boys, and a janitor arrested for a series of rapes and murders. Maninno is convinced of the innocence of both and sets to work.The legalese flows thick and fast and Nick’s personal life gives him some potential conflicts of interest to deal with: his girlfriend, as well as being old-money rich and beautiful, is an assistant district attorney; and his Uncle Rocco is big in the New York mafia.The plot becomes complex with interconnection between cases and even links to Uncle Rocco’s shady past. The cast list resembles a Dickens novel with lawyers, judges, clerks, policemen, witnesses, gangsters, crime reporters and even a mysterious stunning blonde. Their coming and going enables Benignio to mess with the head of the reader who doesn’t know which of these will prove significant later down the line as the plot twists and turns.It’s a fast-paced page-turner and, with Maninno straying from the courtroom into vigilante territory, there is action as well as argument. Credibility is stretched at times (as is standard in the genre) despite the book being ‘inspired by a true story’.It made for a fine thriller but I would have enjoyed it more if I had known more, or cared less about trying to follow, the intricacies of the US criminal justice system.[See my weekly reviews each Friday on abibliodyssey.blogspot.com]

This was a great read although the blurb decribing it nearly put me off. It is the story of a young and idealistic lawyer working in criminal defence who defends criminals that many people would consider undefendable - paedophiles and rapists. The story turns into a detective tale, so don't worry too much that it is only about court room dramas or (from the blurb) all about the italian mafia. It has great pace and will keep you turning the pages and caring about the characters. I found his descriptions of the court process realistic and interesting but even more fascinating was the insight into why someone did this job.His central character was well drawn and engaging - my only regret with this book is that I suspect there will no sequel with the same character. What a shame!

Gritty tale of New York court life in the 1980s, by a man who was there. Much of it evidently based on first hand experience. Told in the first person, sometimes reading this book is a bit like being harangued by a stranger in a bar who insists on telling you every detail of his life. What he had for dinner, where he met his wife, his secretary's sick kid. Boy this man can talk. The narrative tends to wander about too, with some storylines that don't go anywhere, but in the end I decided that I didn't mind. Life's messy like that.Trouble is this is written as fiction, and you can see the joins between what is obviously written from first hand experience and what is made up. In the end it's enjoyable as a slice of New York life, but it's not literature.