|
[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
D W Buffa is a former assistant to a US senator as well as being a former defence lawyer. It is no surprise, then, that in this sixth legal thriller Buffa has plunged his protagonist, defence lawyer Joseph Antonelli, into a trial involving politics. It should be even less shocking to the reader to learn that, in a presidential election year, the novel concerns the presidential election. Antonelli reluctantly attends a Harvard Law School reunion at a Manhattan Hotel at the behest of the vice-president of the United States, Thomas Browning. Antonelli and Browning had been roommates for a time when at law school and Joseph feels a certain duty of support toward his one time friend. Browning is the star speaker at the reunion and in his speech he relates an incident involving a visit paid by Antonelli to Browning's home during which Joseph encountered, and impressed, Browning's unpleasant grandfather, a captain of industry, car manufacturer Zachary Stern. The story illustrates Antonelli's character. The only trouble is that Joseph does not remember any such encounter -- one which supposedly occurred nearly four decades previously. At this point, perhaps I should say that a theme of the story is perceptions people have of what others say and do that may not tally with the way others perceive them. At the reunion is another classmate of Joseph's, Jamison (Jimmy) Haviland. He and Browning had been interested in the same woman back in 1965. At a party given on Christmas Eve of that year, a halcyon time for Antonelli's peers, Annie Malreaux, to whom both men had proposed marriage, fell from a window of the Plaza and was killed. The death was ruled an accident but when Browning was first put forward as a presidential candidate, the current president's supporters stirred up a rumour that Browning was involved in a cover-up. Thus, Browning became vice-president. Now another competition is on for the nomination for the Republican candidacy and Browning has learned that the President and his staff, who loathe Browning, are intent on reviving the old rumours so that Walker may once again win the presidency. Browning informs Antonelli that there will be an indictment -- either of himself or of Haviland -- and he wants Antonelli to defend whomever is to be the defendant. Unenthusiastically, Antonelli agrees. Joseph must meet people from his past, not the least being the vice-president's wife Joanna. with whom Joseph had been in love in the summer of 1965. He has to dredge the differing memories from the participants in the drama of that year. He must also plumb the depths of the perfidy being practised by the president and attempt to beat the prosecuting district attorney, a very impatient lawyer named Caminetti who is obviously doing the bidding of the White House while at the same time alienating the judge who is hearing the case. This is a very interesting book, portraying as it does the intrigues and possible machinations behind the scenes of government. While the later scenes are replete with action, however, I found the earlier scenes a trifle tedious for those of us who are not citizens of the United States. The scene where Browning takes Antonelli on a guided tour of parts of the White House is there only to titillate American curiosity as to what really DOES go on in vice-presidential offices. Despite this minor criticism, I feel this novel is well up to the standard set in Buffa's previous novels.
Reviewed by Denise Pickles, July 2004
[ Top ]
QUICK SEARCH:
Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]
| 
