Mark Gimenez

Honestamente he disfrutado tremendamente de este libro, por supuesto me gusta mucho el thriller jurídico y esperaba tal vez algo como Grisham, pero no, para nada, me he encontrado a un escritor que utiliza los temas jurídicos para señalar a una sociedad hipócrita.
Scott Fenney es un abogado guapo, inteligente, exitoso, tiene todo, es socio del mejor despacho jurídico de Dallas, tiene un Ferrari, una mansión en la mejor zona de la ciudad y tiene la esposa florero perfecta, pero cuando un show more buen día le imponen atender un caso federal para defender a una prostituta negra y adicta a la heroína acusada de asesinar nada menos que al hijo de un Senador, su vida da un vuelco de 180 grados.
Más allá de todo lo que le sucede a Fenney después de haber aceptado este caso, tengo que señalar la manera tan cruda en que el autor pone en relieve una sociedad blanca y rica que es xenófoba, racista, clasista y hasta antisemita, señala a un sistema político corrupto y super poderoso, no solo porque ostentan ese poder político si no porque tienen poder económico.
No fue bonito, para nada, no es nada que no se sepa, pero verlo tan crudamente señalado fue como si me hubiera estado leyendo un libro ubicado en un Estados Unidos de los años cuarenta o cincuenta, sin embargo, tampoco podemos negar que debajo de toda la hipocresía que ostentan, esto no es más que la realidad de la sociedad de ese país.
Ell autor sin embargo también revela esa gran esperanza y fe que tiene en la verdadera justicia de los tribunales de Estados Unidos, algo que por cierto, también siempre presumen, donde todos son inocentes hasta que se pruebe lo contrario y este libro va por sobre cualquier otra cosa, sobre eso, la reivindicación de un abogado, que un día abre los ojos y se da cuenta que la justicia debe ser para todos de igual manera y que dentro de él todavía existe un poco o un mucho de ética y buen corazón.
Así que, nuestro autor, se nota a leguas, es un enamorado no solo de su profesión si no de la fe en la justicia, nos presenta el típico caso de película donde a pesar de tener todo en contra, la verdad siempre triunfa.
Me encanta Scott Fenney, es un personaje que me ha llegado, me cae bien, pero todavía más me encanta Boo, su hija, una niña inteligente, aguda y con una inocencia digna de una niña de su edad que le ha puesto mucho color a toda la historia.
Me alegra haber dado con este libro y espero poder leerme los demás libros de la serie muy pronto. show less

I had never heard of this author, ashamed to say, since I read crime voraciously. Picked this up at the second-hand store, new condition for about $1.50, noting that it had been bought in India for 295 whatevers. The blurb was good and since Gimenez was being called "The next Grisham", I figured this would be OK. I am not a Grisham fan and only read him when I have to think about a problem or situation that needs solving. Grisham, to me, writes the same book over and over, giving only new show more names to his two-dimensional characters. So if Gimenez was supposed to be...Grisham in the making and I needed to think about a situation at this moment, I bought the book.

Oh, my. Why ever would one label Gimenez as ...? No way. Gimenez actually assumes his reader is intelligent, wanting to know reasons behind thoughts and actions. The characters are well-formed and always add to moving the story forward. I thoroughly enjoyed his descriptions of the area, the history behind the surrounding countryside. The book is a page-turner- I couldn't put it down; all 482 pages read in one day.

It got me to the next step in my problem-solving.... show less

Gimenez has written a neatly tied-up thriller that pokes fun at the amount of coincidence he uses throughout the book. The plot is wildly imaginative and provides plenty of drama, laughs and chills. Ten-year old Gracie Brice is kidnapped after her afternoon soccer game. Her brainiac father was more focused on his upcoming IPO and failed to keep tabs on her after the game. Gracie's former-Green Beret grandfather, recently more an alcoholic than anything else, senses the trouble she's in and show more leaves his isolation in the hills above Taos to rescue her. Gracie's mom, a high-powered Dallas attorney, is more focused on placing blame. The resolution was fantastical, but satisfying. I enjoyed the narration by Buck Schirner. show less

This was a bit slow for the first half, and I almost wanted to quit reading, but it got better. It spent a lot of time establishing Scott Finney as an honest judge who needed to judge on the law, not what he thought was right or wrong. He was an advocate for the constitution, as a federal judge. There were many references to his past two books, where he went from a rich, Ferrari-driving defense lawyer to a middle-class judge.

His downfall was caused by defending a black drug addict in a show more highly political case, and later, after she died of an overdose, adopting her daughter who was the same age as his daughter. And speaking of his daughter, she was the product of his former gold-digging trophy wife who ran off with a golf pro after his downfall. He later defended his wife for murdering said golf pro, but she disappeared afterwards, so he's left with two teen daughters. There's a lot of good entertainment just in that situation, a black girl in a rich white school and a precocious daughter who asks questions no father wants to answer - like "What is oral sex?"

Anyway, there are a couple of hard issues in the story. The main case is a group of Muslims, including the imam of the Muslim church, who are accused of planning to bomb the super bowl. One guy was shot, and a group arrested, all on an anonymous tip to the FBI. Problem is, they can't find any evidence at all, but still want to hold them (at least until after the super bowl). The Muslims are outspoken in their hatred of America, Christians, and Jews, and feel beheading is a perfectly acceptable method of showing this. The imam says a lot about why he feels this way; he says the US drones kill innocent Muslims as collateral damage, and wonders why that is more acceptable than beheading. He thinks we are not innocent because we elect our leaders who do this to them. Many of his arguments are hard to argue with, except nobody ever points out that close to half the country did not vote for any of the leaders, but are still blown up or otherwise killed by Muslim retaliations.

The story does present both sides of the issues, but the overall takeaway for me is that the Muslim extremists are less than human, and were not considered when the constitution was written. However, in spite of some of the FBI and government officials, they really do deserve to have actual proof of their guilt before being imprisoned, and not be considered guilty simply because of their beliefs. At least, that was what I got from the story. show less