In addition Lou has another client with a stake in the same case. Fifteen-year-old Nick Byrnes has studied the case ever since he has been old enough to understand what happened on that fateful day when his parents were killed. Nick believes that Whitney King, Kowalczyk’s companion that day, is responsible for his parents’ murders. However, King has money, Kowalczyk is poor. The disparity between the two family incomes makes a tremendous difference on the fates of the two boys. King has been completely exonerated.

Lou feels more than the usual compassion for young Nick’s plight. He, himself, has suffered a similar fate. His parents were killed in an automobile accident when he was about Nick’s age. Nick’s questions rekindle in Lou similar questions he has had about the deaths of his own parents, which his Aunt Claire, his guardian appointed on the death of his parents, has never satisfactorily answered.

Joel Goodman’s Deadlocked has much to recommend it. The axiom to write what you know proves its worth with Goldman’s fast paced novel. Goldman, a lawyer, explains points of law pertinent to the case with precision and clarity. “Despite what many people assumed, lawyers are governed by complex ethical rules that try to balance more than one right thing at a time. A lawyer can’t disclose a prior crime by a client revealed in confidence, but must disclose a client’s intent to commit a crime in the future. If disclosure of the future crime would reveal the prior crime, things get complicated. If the disclosures could get you killed, survival becomes more important than ethics.”

Moreover, the realities of the courtroom are forcefully brought home. “Juries make mistakes. It’s not a matter of faith. It’s a matter of fact.” as Mason so aptly puts it.

Goldman’s characters are fully formed representations of realistic people. They have strengths and weaknesses just like people who actually exist. Mason is so focused on his own personal battle in the courtroom with King, whom he believes to be guilty, that he has ignored the very real threat that King poses to Nick Byrnes. He has even alienated the one person to whom he is most devoted because he has put both their lives in jeopardy. Mason is imperfect, just like a real person. He finds it next to impossible to retain perspective when he is driven by a noble cause.

Outstanding power of description is another of Goldman’s assets which he puts to good use in Deadlocked. His portrait of Mason dressed in prison attire evokes not just the man’s physical description, (orange jumpsuit, handcuffs, and ankle bracelets) but his mental state as well. (The bracelets forced him to shuffle along like an old man)

Goldman’s command of the English language extends to the vocabulary he uses to set a scene as well as inviting the reader into Mason’s cell and the prison block.

The author also carefully informs his readers about specific equipment or conditions. For instance, he describes in detail the mechanics of a stun gun, something with which many readers may not be familiar. Likewise, he develops the smell and feel as well as the sight of an approaching Midwestern tornado. The reader is invited to be an active participant in the story.

If this story has a fault it is in an element of the plot. At one point in the narrative, Mason has gained entrance, by somewhat dubious means, to a facility for the elderly. Part hospital, part assisted living center, and part condo complex, Golden Years meets the needs of a variety of senior citizens. He has reason to believe that there are two women within the confines of Golden Years with whom he must make contact. During an exciting sequence in which the complex takes a direct hit from a tornado, Mason meets first one woman and then the other. It is critical for the advancement of the story that these meetings take place, and it is perfectly logical that both women are housed within the facility. What is extremely serendipitous is these ladies are the first people he meets when the tornado hits.

Goldman has added another page turning outing to his already successful series of legal thrillers featuring the likeable Lou Mason.

--Andy Plonka