The Defense departs from this standard formula in that this plot is character-driven and more than a decade elapses between the beginning and the end.

Written in the first person point-of-view, the book recounts the events that transpire after the narrator, Joseph Antonelli, a successful criminal defense attorney, at the request of Judge Leopold Rifkin, accepts the defense of a sleazy drug dealer who is accused of the rape and abuse of his twelve-year-old stepdaughter.

Antonelli takes cases to win and is unconcerned with the possibility that a guilty defendant might go free. His career has advanced far beyond the point that he needs to accept court-appointed clients. He is, however, a great admirer of Judge Rifkin, a distinguished Oregon trial judge, and takes the case only for that reason.

Antonelli finds Johnny Morel, the defendant, to be vulgar and morally bankrupt. Morel insists that he's innocent, claims that his stepdaughter is out to get him, and states that his wife will corroborate his story. Morel agrees to a polygraph test which he flunks badly, but Antonelli is surprised by his beautiful and sophisticated wife who does indeed back up his client's story. Through skillful courtroom lawyering, Antonelli wins Morel's acquittal.

This early criminal case, however, has repercussions over the following years. Murders committed years later (all the violence is "off-stage") are obviously connected to this first case, and Antonelli's career and very life are affected by the Morel case and those associated with it.

Usually a reader feels a certain degree of sympathy for the narrator of a book. After all, all the details about plot and characters are related from his perspective. Joseph Antonelli, however, is not a very sympathetic hero. In an early scene, he and his live-in girlfriend break up. It's hard not to feel that someone as self-absorbed as Antonelli isn't going to be able to maintain a long-term relationship with anyone who isn't a glutton for punishment.

One of the distinguishing features of The Defense is the narrator's changing attitudes over the years. The reader comes to know him more than like him.

I found the story to be engrossing and the whodunit sufficiently enigmatic that my interest never waned. For those readers who, like me, enjoy mysteries with courtroom drama and legal twists, The Defense is worth checking out.

--Lesley Dunlap