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Michael Bowen delighted this reviewer with his first novel featuring intellectual properties lawyer Reppert Pennyworth. SCREENSCAM (2002), which in my mind deserved an Edgar, was followed by the equally fine UNFORCED ERROR. Now Rep has reappeared in PUTTING LIPSTICK ON A PIG, a tale as complicated as the legal system itself and as appealing as a sunny day at the beach. Rep is arm-twisted by fellow attorney MacKenzie Stewart into delivering a eulogy at the funeral of Vance Hayes, a lawyer so despised by his colleagues that the only good thing that can be said of him is that he allowed his secretary to smoke at her desk. Hayes, who plunged through the ice of a semi-frozen Wisconsin lake after a drunken ride on a snowmobile, comes back to haunt Rep two years after his death. Rep is now living in Milwaukee after persuading his Indianapolis law firm to take a flyer on a branch office in Wisconsin. His reason for moving is personal: Rep's professor wife Melissa has taken a faculty position at UWM. Rep has to come up with clients, though, if he wants to keep his Indiana bosses happy. When Walt Kuchinski, the lawyer with whom he shares office space, throws a case his way, Rep leaps at the opportunity to bill some hours for his firm. Court reporter Sue Key isn't Rep's usual type of client. An expert in intellectual property law, Rep nonetheless goes to bat for Sue when she complains that photographer Pelham Dreyfus doctored a picture of her and put it on a calendar featured for sale at a website called prettygirlssmoking.com. One of the reasons he does so is because Sue has a letter sent to her mother by Vance Hayes only days before his death. The letter recommends Walt Kuchinski as the lawyer of choice for family problems. Rep settles the case with Cold Coast CEO Max Levitan to Sue's advantage, but when he drives her home, they find that her apartment has been burgled. The only things missing are Sue's notes for a deposition taken two years earlier by Vance Hayes of a man called Richard Leopold. By coincidence, the local counsel in the case was Walt Kuchinski. Soon afterward, Pelham Dreyfus disappears and Max Levitan is found murdered. Rep is drawn into the case when his business card is found in Max's pocket. Intrigued by information supplied to him by the police, Rep discusses the investigation with MacKenzie Stewart while having dinner with him and his wife, Judge Gael Cunningham-Stewart. Later, after Melissa does some snooping into the case and becomes a target for the murderer, MacKenzie suggests that she spend some time with Gael at the couple's cabin in the north woods. That's fine with Rep, who's been forced into going deer hunting with Walt Kuchinski. Both Rep and Melissa feel safe in the company of people they know while the police continue to hunt for both Dreyfus and Leopold. Bowen's latest novel is an energetic exercise in the complexities of the legal system, the people who practice in it, and the people who manipulate it to their own advantage. Rep is as witty as ever, with clever repartee marking the dialogue between him and Melissa. Kuchinski is portrayed as an every-man's lawyer, bluff and hearty, but with decades old secrets of his own. Stewart, on the other hand, is the tough but ultra-successful lawyer whose money and power helped to land his wife a judgeship. The three attorneys are distinctly different, while Vance Hayes, even though dead, is as alive in the reader's mind as his colleagues due to the author's ability to portray his personality through the words and actions of others. The supporting cast of characters is equally well drawn, as is the setting of the novel. Complications abound in the plot with some twists extending as far back as the Vietnam War period. There's absolutely nothing to dislike about this mystery, but much to be applauded. My only complaint is that the book had to end. Rep and Melissa are the most appealing pair of amateur detectives to come along in quite a while. Hopefully, they'll return for a repeat performance very soon.
Reviewed by Mary V. Welk, July 2006
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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