Can a former district attorney find love with a woman he once sent to prison for manslaughter?

That slightly implausible puzzle is one of several in Morley Swingle’s Choice of Evils, first in a series of legal thrillers featuring attorney Wyatt Blake.

Wyatt Blake, of Panorama Springs, Colorado, lost his way after the death of his wife in a skiing accident, an accident for which he still blames himself. His concentration slipped, and an ambitious rival managed to beat him in his race for reelection. Now he’s set up as a defense attorney, but the word is out that Wyatt has lost a step.

So it’s a surprise when a friend refers a heavyweight client to him – Ryker Brando, a tech and legal-marijuana multimillionaire. Ryker doesn’t deny that he cut the rope tying him to his business partner while rock climbing, sending him plunging to his death. But he argues that he had no choice – if he hadn’t, they’d have both been killed.

Ryker’s claims are weakened by the fact that the man was having an affair with his wife.

Ryker is kind of an Elon Musk caricature – he’s autistic, arrogant, demanding, and unlikeable. Wyatt will have a job to do, convincing any jury to buy his arguments. He’ll need to bring his A game – and these days he’s not the lawyer he used to be.

He doesn’t know if it’s a good thing or bad when he runs into Harper Easton, a female former police officer, now a private eye, whom he sent to prison for shooting an unarmed suspect. She hates his guts, and he feels guilty about it. But there’s a spark there, and he could use an investigator…

First of all, I need to say that I enjoyed Choice of Evils. The prose was good. I liked the characters. I was caught up in the mystery.

However, I thought there was a certain… lack of self-confidence in the writing.

Years ago, I read an interview with a TV comedy writer who’d written for Milton Berle. He recalled how Berle had always asked him to make the jokes “lappier.”

What does “lappier” mean? the writer wanted to know.

Berle explained that he wanted the jokes to fall into the audience’s laps. Nothing subtle. Push the joke in their faces like a cream pie.

I felt that way reading Choice of Evils. It seemed the author didn’t trust his own powers. He was telling me how to feel about everybody and every situation – even, to some extent, the big plot twist that was coming further along

Take, for instance, this passage:

Aside from a cordial hello, Harper hasn’t said a thing to me. No reason she should, though. I had a hand, obviously, in causing a great deal of unpleasantness in her life. The help I’m giving her regarding her mother is small compensation.

There’s nothing wrong with those lines in themselves – except that they tell us nothing we don’t already know. We’ve been told numerous times that Wyatt caused Harper “unpleasantness.” We’ve seen how he’s helping her mother out. The last two sentences are thus entirely superfluous, and could have been cut, moving the scene along.

Well, it may be author Swingle is learning his craft, and will do better in time. Taken all together, Choice of Evils is a commendable and highly readable effort.

In spite of being written in the present tense.

Recommended, with cautions for language and some steamy sex stuff.