Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is the first in the Joe Dillard series - billed as a "legal thriller", it comes up woefully short. This book is filled with one-dimensional cardboard characters, stilted dialogue and an extraordinarily simplistic plot. There is nothing original here let alone engaging. Dillard is a defense attorney in Tennessee, who has become more than jaded with, and definitely tired of his job. There are political and border-line incompetent judges - who all seem to hold a grudge against Joe - and continually assign him the most evil of clients to defend - they're all on or destined for death row - which he reluctantly accepts. There's a "bad cop" who will bend any and all rules to put scumbags behind bars and an incompetent, and again, political DA. Joe of course is in the middle of all this, Don Quixote-like, fighting the good fight. On the personal side, Joe has a mother fighting Alzheimer's, a drug addicted sister and a family of his own, complete with a cute dog - rescued from a shelter of course - and a loving wife, whom Joe treats like a door-mat - which I believe is an unintentional character flaw. Joe is also haunted by his past. He's an Army Ranger - suffering from a mild case of PTSD - from his service in Grenada. At the center of all this is Joe's new client, a waitress at a strip joint accused of murdering a preacher, a patron of said establishment - the client's name - Angel Christian. I kid you not. Joe's job is to defend her. The reader's task - to keep a straight face. The case, the trial, the plot, the twists and turns - nothing works here. Pass on this one.