{"id":18314,"date":"2023-06-06T20:06:08","date_gmt":"2023-06-07T00:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=18314"},"modified":"2023-06-06T20:06:08","modified_gmt":"2023-06-07T00:06:08","slug":"the-criminal-lawyer-by-thomas-benigno","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=18314","title":{"rendered":"‘The Criminal Lawyer,’ by Thomas Benigno"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I read and reviewed <\/strong>Thomas Benigno\u2019s first Nick Mannino novel, The Good Lawyer,<\/a><\/em> some time back. I liked it quite a lot, but I missed the sequel, The Criminal Lawyer.<\/a><\/em> I\u2019m making that up now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first book, Nick gave up the practice of criminal law to please his wife, who hated it. But after they separated he went back to it, though he\u2019s not doing it any more. He and she are still friendly (he hasn\u2019t given up hopes for reconciliation), and he adores his two adult children, John and Charlotte. So he\u2019s horrified when John\u2019s fianc\u00e9e is kidnapped, and taunting messages are sent by the kidnapper from her cell phone. The most puzzling thing is that this serial killer has been abducting prostitutes, which this girl is definitely not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nick has connections with organized crime. He\u2019s not involved with their business, but he took the money when his mobster uncle left him his fortune. This means Nick has considerable resources to draw on in his effort to find this serial killer and rescue John\u2019s fianc\u00e9e. What he doesn\u2019t expect is that it will lead him eventually to a violent, personal encounter with the monster \u2013 an encounter that could end his life \u2013 or transform it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have to admit I didn\u2019t like The Criminal Lawye<\/em>r as much as The Good Lawyer<\/em>, though I did like it. The story was compelling, the plotting good, the characters interesting. I thought the prose was a little flaccid; it could have been tightened considerably. The author is also prone to misplaced and dangling modifiers. And the big scene where Nick unloads his deepest secrets to another person for the first time in his life seemed improbable and awkward to me. The epilogue was probably too long, but it provided satisfying closure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On balance, a pretty good book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read and reviewed Thomas Benigno\u2019s first Nick Mannino novel, The Good Lawyer, some time back. I liked it quite a lot, but I missed the sequel, The Criminal Lawyer. I\u2019m making that up now. In the first book, Nick gave up the practice of criminal law to please his wife, who hated it. But … Continue reading ‘The Criminal Lawyer,’ by Thomas Benigno<\/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":[4735,4736,4734],"class_list":["post-18314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-nick-mannino","tag-the-criminal-lawyer","tag-thomas-benigno"],"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\/18314","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=18314"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18315,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18314\/revisions\/18315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}