{"id":17237,"date":"2022-09-02T20:28:13","date_gmt":"2022-09-03T00:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=17237"},"modified":"2022-09-02T20:28:13","modified_gmt":"2022-09-03T00:28:13","slug":"the-key-to-justice-by-dennis-carstens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=17237","title":{"rendered":"‘The Key to Justice,’ by Dennis Carstens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I\u2019ve been reading the later books<\/strong> in the Marc Kadella series of legal thrillers (set in Minneapolis), and enjoying them with some reservations. So when I got a deal on a package of the first three books, I bought it. Not sure what I was getting. I had the idea the first books might be a little clumsy. Instead I found that The Key to Justice<\/a><\/em>, the opening novel, was remarkably good and wickedly entertaining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book opens with Jake Waschke, an honest, respected Minneapolis police detective. He\u2019s half-brother to the governor\u2019s chief aide, a troubled young man whom he has protected all his life. Now he faces a horrific problem. A knife-wielding serial killer is raping and murdering young women in the Twin Cities (including the governor\u2019s daughter), and Jake knows his brother is doing it. So he selects Carl Fornich, a scumbag with a past rape conviction, and fakes evidence to get him prosecuted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carl\u2019s brother comes to Marc Kadella for a defense. Marc is a struggling, small-time lawyer. He needs all the business he can get, especially because he\u2019s involved in countersuing the US government in a tax case and it\u2019s taking forever. Though the prospects of collecting a lot from Carl\u2019s family seem small. But when Marc meets Carl, he\u2019s convinced he\u2019s innocent. If he is, that means the police are framing him. Which makes Marc mad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his Introduction, author Dennis Carstens informs us that one of his main motivations for writing the story was to dramatize the un-glamorous side of the practice of law. The long hours, the tedium, the difficulties in getting paid, the official arrogance that has to be swallowed. And that element was in fact one of the things I\u2019ve liked about the books all along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But to be frank, the later books have gotten a little formulaic. This first one is genuinely original. Lots of surprises and twists, and very dark irony. Carstens isn\u2019t a great prose stylist (and he has a real problem with punctuation), but he can tell a heck of a story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, thanks to his stinginess with character description, I\u2019ve never known what the beautiful Maddy (Marc\u2019s investigator, later his girlfriend) looks like . Now I know she\u2019s tall, brunette, and blue-eyed. Good to know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recommended, with the usual cautions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been reading the later books in the Marc Kadella series of legal thrillers (set in Minneapolis), and enjoying them with some reservations. So when I got a deal on a package of the first three books, I bought it. Not sure what I was getting. I had the idea the first books might be … Continue reading ‘The Key to Justice,’ by Dennis Carstens<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[4265,4266,4323],"class_list":["post-17237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-dennis-carstens","tag-marc-kadella","tag-the-key-to-justice"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17237"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17239,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17237\/revisions\/17239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}