Join us for the next Evening Book Club at the Flemington Free Public Library on Thursday, November 21st at 7:00 PM. We will be discussing Defending Jacob by William Landay.
There’s no mistaking this novel’s trial scenes for the work of anyone but a lawyer. Mr. Landay pays a lot of attention to tactics, both legal and dramatic ones. He cites a three-word trial mantra that is unprintable here but useful for any prosecutor. And he gets an extra frisson out of the way that Andy, as Neal’s former teacher, knows this prosecutor inside out. “He would get up in front of the jury box shaking his head and pursing his lips like a schoolmarm or priest,” Andy recalls, “and in every juror there stirred a secret desire to vote against him.” In a less ingenious book that might foreshadow something. But in this one, nothing is predictable. All bets are off.
www.nytimes.com/2012/02/13/books/defending-jacob-by-william-landay.html