{"id":20677,"date":"2025-04-30T19:53:21","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T23:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=20677"},"modified":"2025-04-30T19:53:21","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T23:53:21","slug":"the-perfect-lawyer-by-gregg-bell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=20677","title":{"rendered":"‘The Perfect Lawyer,’ by Gregg Bell"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Icarus \u201cIke\u201d Thompson,<\/strong> hero of The Perfect Lawyer<\/a><\/em>, used to be a legal superstar in Chicago. He defended high-profile criminal defendants and usually won. Then he ran up against Ursula Rush, a hard-driving prosecutor who not only beat him but humiliated him in a case in which he was personally invested. Overwhelmed and shamed, he retreated to a leafy suburb, where he now practices property law. When he interviews Abby Blum, an attractive young lawyer from Colorado, as a new partner, and she brings up criminal law, he shuts her down and almost rejects her application. But she persists, and he takes her on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then \u201cFather K.\u201d shows up. He\u2019s a Catholic priest and a well-known social crusader. He wants Ike to defend Mia Hendrickson. a media sensation, a mother accused of setting her house on fire and burning her two children to death. She\u2019s already been tried and convicted in the court of public opinion. Ike wants nothing to do with the case, but we just know Father K. will get through to him in the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then follows a tale of increasing drama as Ike and Abby take on what looks like a hopeless case, only gradually realizing what kind of power and corruption they\u2019re facing. And at the prosecutor\u2019s table, once again, will be none other than Ursula Rush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I were teaching a novel writing class, and a student had submitted A Perfect Lawyer<\/em> as a final project, I would give them an A. The book is well-plotted, generally well written, and gripping. The prose could have been better \u2013 occasionally an overwritten line shows up: \u201cHe was burning with their insolent intimidation.\u201d<\/em> But overall the writing is good, and way better than a lot I see these days. The dialogue is sometimes kind of bookish, and could use some polishing. But I\u2019d tell the author he showed great promise and had produced a publishable work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was a little disappointed that some plot threads were left loose at the end, but no doubt the next volume in the series will pick them up. I almost mistook this book for Christian fiction, because I noticed no profanity (kudos for that).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All in all, The Perfect Lawyer<\/em>, though less than perfect, is pretty good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Icarus \u201cIke\u201d Thompson, hero of The Perfect Lawyer, used to be a legal superstar in Chicago. He defended high-profile criminal defendants and usually won. Then he ran up against Ursula Rush, a hard-driving prosecutor who not only beat him but humiliated him in a case in which he was personally invested. Overwhelmed and shamed, he … Continue reading ‘The Perfect Lawyer,’ by Gregg Bell<\/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":[5533,5534,5535],"class_list":["post-20677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-gregg-bell","tag-ike-thompson","tag-the-perfect-lawyer"],"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\/20677","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=20677"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20680,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20677\/revisions\/20680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}