It’s a pleasure to read a first novel and enjoy it. Doesn’t happen as often as one would wish. I can’t claim Thomas Benigno’s The Good Lawyer as any kind of personal discovery, though. It’s already an Amazon bestseller.

The book shows some of the distinctive marks of a first novel. Author Benigno is sometimes a tad awkward in terms of style, but I’ve seen far, far worse in recent years. Generally the editing’s pretty good. The plot doesn’t really offer a lot of surprises, and contains a fair number of common tropes. But then tropes exist for a reason. A novel entirely without tropes would lack credibility.

The hero and narrator is Nick Mannino, a young Legal Aid lawyer (a job the author knows from experience) doing defense work in the Bronx. For a change, he finds himself with two defendants he thinks might actually be innocent, one a teacher accused of molesting little boys, the other an accused serial rapist. But if he thinks that’s surprising, he has no idea what very nasty shocks are coming his way.

The best thing about this book is the characters. Nick is very likeable, and the friends, family, co-workers, and enemies who show up in the story are easy to believe in. His devout, loving mother, his wealthy girlfriend, and his sympathetic mobster uncle (a little too much Godfather here, but he’s still a good character) draw the reader in. And the villain is so vile and contemptible that we’re all on Nick’s side when, having earlier declared his opposition to capital punishment, he sets out to essentially perform an execution himself.

The politics of the story are hard to discern. Nick seems to be a decent liberal, but the story (it appears to me) has conservative implications, at least in terms of the justice system. I suppose that’s how bestselling authors square the circle and please a large audience. I need to try that.

Christianity comes out pretty well in this story, and I’m happy to report that the author avoided one trope in particular – the pedophile priest. (I don’t think he’s ever been inside a Baptist church, though, judging by his descriptions.)

All in all, pretty good. I enjoyed it. Recommended, with cautions for strong language and mature subject matter.