Politics and murder. The detective depended on a deus ex machina in the form of an email disclosed in discovery at the last minute; he didn't seem to have deduced the killer before then, but I only read the first and last sections, as I did not care for the steamy parts.
There were some good court scenes (author is a lawyer?), but the denouement wrapped up too quickly and featured some really stupid moves by the protagonist, i.e., going out alone knowing the villain was gunning for him. ( )

Legal thriller. Political basis in legislator's corruption, federal espionage, and corporate complicity. Gratuitous sex scenes. Court-room drama; special forces antics.
DID NOT READ COMPLETELY ( )

A CEO of a Fortune 500 company is shot in her beach front home in La Jolla, California. Her former personal executive security guard (Ruiz) is arrested, charged with the murder and is facing the death penalty. Attorney Paul Madriani is retained to represent Ruiz by a foundation established to assist veterans with legal woes.

Madriani has his work cut out.

Ruiz has spent his adult life in the employ of the U.S. military. He has a seven year gap in his resume and his is not willing to explain it to his attorney.

The CEO ran a company that has as a major customer, the US government.

The deputy district attorney assigned to prosecute Ruiz is a charismatic vertically challenged man, with a prefect record in capital cases.

The story moves fast. It has twists and turns that are logical on reflection - thus not annoying . . . and it is timely, fresh from the real world. ( )

Isonetrics spyware/mirror image software grab for power
2.07

"Double Tap" was my first exposure to Steve Martini and his defense-attorney protagonist Paul Madriani. I enjoyed this story immensely, both for its tight, realistic plot line and the high quality of the writing. Martini's work, it seems, has found the sweet spot in the legal thriller genre, midway between Grisham's breezy, over-the-top scenarios and Turow's high-density realism.

The story itself revolves around the murder of a high-flying female CEO, Madelyn Chapman, and Madriani's defense of the victim's former bodyguard, Emiliano Ruiz. All of the evidence, almost too neatly, points in Ruiz's direction, suggesting a classic frame-up. Complicating matters for Madriani are Ruiz's secretive demeanor, a brilliant prosecutor who takes every advantage of his diminutive physical stature in court, and difficulty penetrating the proprietary goings-on at Madelyn's company (a software vendor to the Department of Defense).

Unlike many thrillers, where actual trial time is a scarce commodity, the bulk of this novel describes the clever courtroom jousting between Madriani and the prosecutor. As a lawyer, I appreciated the accuracy of the legal procedures and points of law. And as a thriller lover, I appreciated the page-flipping suspense as well as the political angle involving Government intrusions on citizens' privacy. A final plot twist, after a suitable climax had been realized, struck me a bit contrived and superfluous, although these devices have come to be almost required in the genre these days. As a whole, this was many notches above the typical courtroom thriller, leaving me echoing the sentiment expressed by one of the characters at the end of the book: "If I ever get in trouble, I want [Madriani] for a lawyer."

-Kevin Joseph, author of "The Champion Maker" ( )