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The Jury Master

by Robert Dugoni

Robert Dugoni's The Jury Master is a real accomplishment: I started reading right after dinner at about 6:15 PM and didn't put it down except for breaks until I'd finished the final page (number 438) at 2 A.M.! Not unusual that I read a book through at one sitting, but rare, and only when a story really grabs me. This one did, and being by a former attorney (I detest most lawyers) it's even more surprising. Most lawyers are good with words, but there's a decided difference being those spoken and written. Robert Dugoni obviously knows how to write superior suspense. Time Warner is fortunate to have this new author.

David Sloane is a lawyer, and the first view we have of him is when he's doing his usual lawyer bit – using his talent to successfully defend someone who certainly doesn't deserve defending. Sloane's talent is the catch – like Hitler and other negatively famous leaders, Sloane has only to open his mouth and people (including jurors) will believe anything he says or follow him anywhere. But then aside from his career, David learns a murdered man tried to contact him before he died. That knowledge starts a whole new ballgame and takes Sloane out of the courtroom for a while.

The dead guy is Joe Branick, a highly placed friend and counselor to the President of the United States. He was found in a remote federal park, shot through the head, and everyone says it was suicide. Except that the cop who originally found him is also found later in his cruiser at the bottom of a steep ravine; submerged in water. It's ascribed as accident. But there's one local cop, Tom Molina, who knew the young policeman, who thinks differently. He suspects that Joe Branick's death wasn't a suicide at all.

Sloane doesn't believe Branick's death was suicide either. He receives a package in the mail that explains a good deal, but the reader isn't privy to the contents or reason for Sloane's nightmares and migraines until the very end of the tale. Meanwhile everyone Sloane meets or cares about is suddenly killed or hunted, including him – he's suddenly the primary focus and target without quite knowing why. Then Sloane discovers he's not who he always thought he was, and his efforts to uncover the reasons take him from the family of the first murdered man to the President himself.

David Sloane has a remarkable talent that he evidently used as a child – but that memory is connected to something far worse, and isn't resolved until the final pages. The end result clears everything up at last, with the bad guys effectively done away with or gotten rid of so David can return to his career and life – albeit from a different standpoint.

The Jury Master is a who dunnit's delight, especially since the 'who' in this case involves not a single individual but several, all for varying reasons with the last one that of revenge. Author Robert Dugoni has provided the murder-mystery genre with a story to be remembered – a standout in a field clogged with other quite competent new authors, none of whom are able to offer such compelling suspense.

Alan Paul Curtis

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