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Broden Legal  Series, Book 3

From the publisher:

From the author of Dead Certain comes a twisting novel of friendship, love, and marriage—and all their cunning and deadly betrayals.

Back in 1986, Clint Broden was a novice New York defense attorney building a family with his wife, Anne, and impatient for his career to take off. That’s when his defense of his closest friend, Nick Zamora, made headlines. In spite of his lingering suspicions that his soul mate since childhood had a secret, Clint was dedicated to believing Nick hadn’t murdered his new bride.

Three decades later, Clint is now the celebrated go-to attorney for the rich and famous. Nick is a lauded literary superstar living his dreams in Los Angeles. Though separated by thirty years and three thousand miles, they’re still bound by one thing—the trial that tested the limits of their friendship.

After all these years, the last thing Clint expects is to be pulled back into Nick’s disruptive life. But this time, his motives for getting involved might be different from proving his old friend’s innocence. It could be Clint’s last chance to force a reckoning with the sins of the past.

It is very gratifying to read and enjoy an almost perfect book, and I have just finished Adam Mitzner’s latest novel, which fits the bill. The format is first-person dialogue by each of the four protagonists involved in the story. These dialogues are not different interpretations of the same situations but descriptions of a separate part of the novel that complete a brilliant whole.

Clint Broden is a novice defense attorney in 1986 starting out trying to build a practice. His lifelong best friend, Nick Zamora, on his part is attempting to start off a career as an author with the normal problems of getting noticed and producing interesting literature that will sell. Both are married with wives they seem compatible with.

A sudden crisis develops when Nick’s wife seemingly drowns in her bathtub. The feeling, especially by the police investigating the death, is that how is it possible for someone to drown in what is really a shallow basin of water. Nick is eventually accused of murder, brought to trial with Clint acting as his defense attorney.

Adam Mitzner is actually a practicing attorney and his description of the trial and the back and forth actions of both the prosecution and the defense has the sensation of really being how it would play out. There are no brilliant flashes on the part of any of the participants but rather the gradual and logical proceeding to the end of the trial. Nick is found not guilty and the cause of his wife’s death, if it is murder, is not discovered.

The novel then flashes forward 30 years at a point that Clint is now at the apex of his career with a great practice under his control and Nick a very successful author with several bestsellers under his belt. A second crisis erupts at this point in the lives of the two men that results in an ending that is in every way perfect for the novel.

That this is a novel that will keep the reader glued to the pages until the end goes without saying. And while the books I have read by Mitzner are generally five stars, this one is that step beyond that is not found in many novels and demands that the reader keep a careful eye out for the author’s succeeding work.

4/2020 Paul Lane

THE BEST FRIEND by Adam Mitzner. Thomas & Mercer (April 14, 2020). ISBN: 978-1542005753. 319p.

Kindle

NOTE: This book is published by an Amazon imprint. Amazon refuses to sell their ebooks to libraries.

Audible

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 16th, 2020 at 8:00 AM and is filed under Book Reviews, Crime Fiction, Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.