Greed and the pursuit of riches ...

I've read the first of the two stories in this volume and don't feel drawn to read the second.

The lead character is an American Judge and though little of the story takes place in the courtroom, a lot of it is about lawyers and greed and the pursuit of riches through lawsuits. It's also about the medical profession and greed and the pursuit of riches ...

Willa and her restaurateur husband are quite attractive, though relationships between other characters are convoluted to the threshold of disbelief, especially as they are revealed towards the end.

I find the American legal system (as presented through novels and drama) quite repulsive - from plea-bargaining, to putting convicts into open-fronted cages like animals, to millions changing hands (as in this novel) in the pursuit of class action suits. The suit being pursued here concerns women allegedly being made ill by breast implants. The general feeling of the book is that most of the lawyers involved know that this hasn't been proved and don't believe it's true, but, hey, there is a lot of money to be made so let's pull in as many clients as we can. Whilst the suit isn't the main focus of the book, it underpins the whole plot which concerns the murder of a man found floating in the sea, who may or may not be a doctor who performed thousands of breast implants.

Setting aside the plot, it is quite well written, though I didn't care for the way the author rounded off sections with disjointed pronoun-less phrases as if the main character were finishing an entry in her diary.

All in all, it is not a bad book, but it is not to my taste. ( )