How many people had recommended The Legal Limit by Martin Clark (Random House, July 8, 2008)? I’ve lost count. I should send each a hand-written thank you note.
Clark, a circuit court judge in Stuart, VA, is “the thinking man’s John Grisham” according to The New York Times for good reason.
A murder cover-up that involves two brothers who have chosen very different paths despite a horrendous shared childhood, grabs the reader from page one. The moral dilemmas presented give the title The Legal Limit double entendre. The twists and turns in the plot are quite satisfying.
I have to confess that while reading the book the only breaks I took were to head to Martin Clark’s website and Virginia newspaper archives to try to figure out which portions of the book were ripped directly from his experience as a judge and which were probably inspired by real-life events but could safely be construed as fiction. At the beginning of the book the author plainly states that there are true, or at least truths woven into the novel. I bring this up because in the last few pages, it becomes obvious which character Martin is in the book.
Catalog Copy for the book:
Martin Clark’s most remarkable novel yet is the gripping, complex story
of a murder cover-up that wreaks widespread havoc even as it redefines
the concept of justice—a relentlessly entertaining saga that delves
deeply into matters at once ambiguous and essential.
While Gates
Hunt chose to fight his abusive father head-on, his younger brother,
Mason, eventually escaped their bitter, impoverished circumstances by
earning a free ride to college and law school. And while Gates became
an intransigent, compulsive felon, Mason met and married the love of
his life, had a spitfire daughter, and returned to his rural hometown
as the commonwealth’s attorney. But Mason’s idyll is abruptly pierced
by a wicked tragedy, and soon afterward his life further unravels when
Gates, convinced that his brother’s legal influence should spring him
from prison, attempts to force his cooperation by means of a secret
they’d both sworn to take with them to the grave. And with his closest
friend and staunch ally suddenly threatened by secrets of his own,
Mason ultimately finds himself facing complete ruin and desperately
defending everything and everyone he holds dear.
Intricately plotted and shot through with authenticity, The Legal Limit
is a roller coaster of moral relevance. What should govern our actions
when family loyalty challenges personal integrity, when the letter of
the law defies its spirit, and when fate plays dice with our best
endeavors?
I loved this book.
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