If you are not an aficionado of legal thrillers, The Tenth Justice will tell you more than you ever wanted to know about the Supreme Court of the United States. Carefully researched and accurate as far as this outsider attorney can reasonably know, this book takes us behind the scenes to one of the most clandestine arenas in the legal world.

Law clerks, chosen no doubt by the same standards as royalty selects its knights, emerge to assume some of the most powerful positions in America. Collectively while they serve, they constitute, in this author's mind, The Tenth Justice, because of the influence they wield with their employers.

Ben Addison joins this exalted rank and finds his co-clerk to be the witty Lisa Schulman. During his first week and while his Justice is on vacation in Norway, a major high profile death case is directed to their office for a stay of execution. Fortunately, former law clerk Rick Fagen calls and offers them invaluable advice. So, Ben and Lisa are off to a flying start and soon integrated into the "clerk clique.

Ben is living with his high school pals, who all too conveniently have insider jobs in the Senate, the State Department and a major Washington newspaper. The camaraderie between them is often sophomoric and distracting. Suddenly, life as Ben knows it changes dramatically when Wall Street makes a millionaire of someone clearly betting on the outcome of a merger case, one week before the decision was to be released by the Supreme Court.

With a sinking heart Ben realizes that he had discussed this opinion with Rick Fagen. Imagine his surprise when he finds Rick's phone disconnected and he discovers that the Court had never had a clerk by that name. Ben mobilizes his friends to help him and Lisa find the treacherous Rick. The search ultimately rends the fabric of friendship, as the path twists into high echelons of Washington power.

For my money, there are easier ways of making money than the evil guys chose in this book, and the cost of doing business (bribery) certainly cut into their bottom line. If nothing else, The Tenth Justice illustrates why the Supreme Court Code of Ethics was written.

--Thea Davis