With Intent to Kill, by Nancy Kopp

Why I finished this book I can't really explain. At one point, early on, I decided that it wasn't very good, but since it is a mystery I wanted to see how it comes out. That is my excuse, I suppose, but in the end, the resolution is so contrived and weak that my persistence was not justified.

In this novel an assistant DA works with a sheriff's detective in suburban Wisconsin to discover and prosecute the murderer of a four-year-old boy.

I have now wasted sufficient words to describe a waste of words.

A brief review from Publisher's Weekly.

The Jezebel Remedy, by Martin Clark

Joe and Lisa Stone are lawyers, married twenty years, and in practice together. They have an extremely eccentric client, Lettie VanSandt, who dies in a fire at her home in very strange circumstances.

As this legal mystery unfolds, we learn that there is a lot more to Lettie and her world than anyone expected.

The characters in this book are pretty good. Joe Stone may be just a little bit too manly and perfect to be believed, and Lisa smokes so much that reading this book I found myself having psychosomatic bronchitis.

The setting is rural Virginia, and there are a lot of pleasant home-town characters that support Lisa and Joe when things get rough. There is also an evil pharmaceutical corporation with an amoral leader who is very easy to despise. I never mind seeing that industry put in a bad light.

There are plot elements included that might have been done without. I don't want to spoil the enjoyment of the book for anyone by being specific here, but perhaps a more aggressive editor would be good for Mr. Clark.

The mystery itself is functional. I do think the resolution was just a little bit too facile, but I didn't mind. I enjoyed this book and read it in about a day.

Martin Clark is a Virginia circuit-court judge, according to the book jacket. This is interesting, as there is a very likable judge character in this book, named Klein. He has other books, one is Legal Limit, which I may look for.

The Fifth Witness, by Michael Connelly

This is a Mickey Haller, The Lincoln Lawyer, novel.

In it, Haller takes the case of Lisa Trammel, a woman who is accused of murdering the banker that foreclosed on her house.

The plot is fascinating, as is the writing, and twists all the way to the end of a difficult court case for Haller.

The book features a terrific ending, and in no way disappoints. Connelly is a sure-fire writer of this type of fiction.

LA Times review

Identical, by Scott Turow

Turow hasn't disappointed me yet. This is an involved, compact mystery that features identical twins, one of the great basic mystery mechanisms, in my opinion.

In this story, one twin confesses to murder, the other has a successful political career in Kindle County. As the political brother prepares for a major election, his brother is getting out of prison, and things begin to fall apart.

There is an interesting under-current of Greek-American culture in this novel that I don't recall finding in Turow's work before, though I may simply be forgetting.

Sandy Stern makes an appearance in this book as do other Kindle County characters that Turow has introduced in the past. What a fabulously entertaining and thoughtful body of work Turow has given us; I hope there will be much more.

Gods of Guilt, by Michael Connelly

This is a recent Mickey Haller (The "Lincoln Lawyer") novel, set some time after his appearance in Reversal. Apparently since that novel, Haller has run for election as DA, and lost, largely due to having defended an unpopular person. At the tail end of this political and personal (his first ex-wife and daughter will have almost nothing to do with him) disaster, he finds himself representing a "digital pimp" accused of murdering a prostitute.

In typical fashion, as this story unfolds, the plot becomes very complicated. There are suspicious characters in law enforcement, including a DEA agent named Marco, as well as organized crime figures. A lawyer in prison reaches out through his son, an apparently incompetent lawyer with the same name as his disgraced father.

The novel goes at full speed right up to the end. There are only a few pages of denouement.

Harry Bosch doesn't really figure in the plot, but makes a cameo appearance.

Innocent, by Scott Turow

An audio book.

Told from several points-of-view, this novel is the story of  "Rusty" Sabich, a judge in Turow's fictional Kindle County. As the story begins, Sabich's wife has died. For some reason, Sabich does nothing upon discovering that she is dead, and sits with her lifeless body for twenty-four hours before calling his son.

As the story unfolds, we learn about Sabich's life, and the suspicious things that have happened in his past. We hear the story from Tommy Molto, Sabich's old colleague and sometime enemy, who is now the prosecuting attorney, who comes to suspect that Sabich may have murdered his wife. Other bits are narrated by Sabich's son, and by Anna, his former lover.

The plot is complicated, and fascinating. Turow has spun another great Kindle County legal mystery, and I enjoyed every bit of it.

Washington Post Review