About
Reviews
Search
Submit
Home

Mystery Books for Sale

[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]


  

FATAL FEBRUARY
by Barbara Levenson
Oceanview Publishing, February 2009
264 pages
$22.95
ISBN: 1933515597


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Attorney Mary Katz seems to have it made. She loves her job. She's been engaged to another lawyer for five years. Life is good. And then one day it all goes out the window. She encounters a rude man at a car wash. He ends up crashing his Corvette into her SUV. She winds up being his real estate lawyer for a transaction that may or may not be quite legal. She has a brief and very intense relationship with this man, Carlos Martin, that her fiancé walks in on. That's the end of that engagement, and also of her job, since her fiancé happens to be her boss (which is SO wrong). The upside is she winds up being the defense attorney for Lillian Yarmouth, who is alleged to have killed her husband. And Carlos doesn't walk out of her life. He keeps coming to her rescue, and romancing her all the while.

You'd think she'd back off with Carlos, seeing that her ex-fiancé brought the fact that she had sex with a client to the attention of the ethics board. Katz is way too touchy-feely for someone looking at an ethics investigation that might easily cost her her career. The way that whole mess is resolved seemed very contrived and unlikely.

Levenson has been a lawyer for a while, and a judge. She probably knows the Florida legal system as well as anyone. Unfortunately, expertise doesn't always translate into a good book. The romance is mostly fine; the rest of the plot could use some work. For one thing, this lawyer just building her own private practice has way too much free time; she should be delegating a lot of the investigating she does herself. At one point, she walks out on her biggest client right before the trial because Carlos is injured; this was, for me, another instance of behavior that was not believable. There is basically only one very obvious suspect, other than Lillian, and the plot twist at the end is nothing unusual.

The sub-plot dealing with her former fiancé is forced; she worked and was romantically involved with this man for five years and had no clue that he would retaliate in a manner way out of line? And then she has some guys rough him up? She warns these guys not to tell Carlos, because he might react inappropriately -- what does she think SHE is doing?

In the acknowledgements, Levenson mentions the budget and building restraints that affect the Florida criminal justice system, and affect that system adversely. Having said that in the acknowledgements, there is no need for the low-grade polemic delivered by the State Attorney General, trying to excuse the abysmal performance of the police in the Yarmouth case. It's whiny, and I can't see how it enhances the book other than by letting Levenson get this off her chest. All in all, readers looking for a romance in the middle of a very unlikely mystery may find FATAL FEBRUARY to their liking. Anyone looking for a good mystery with a believable romance might want to look elsewhere.

Reviewed by P.J. Coldren, November 2008

[ Top ]


QUICK SEARCH:

 

Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]