Publisher's Weekly Review
Former New Jersey prosecutor Sandy Moss, the narrator of this amiable if flawed series launch from Copperman (the Asperger's mysteries), has relocated to L.A. to take a job with a family law firm, where she gets off to a rocky start. At a divorce negotiation between the firm's client, TV star Pat McNabb, and McNabb's soon-to-be ex-wife, Patsy, Sandy speaks out of turn and compromises the client's position. McNabb, however, is taken with Sandy, and insists she remain on the case. After McNabb is arrested for fatally shooting Patsy with an arrow, she becomes his defense attorney. The evidence against McNabb includes his being found at the scene with blood on his hands, which he claims was the result of his attempt to remove the arrow. While the actor is out on bail, Sandy and McNabb are shot at, his car is blown up, and someone nails a Barbie doll decorated with fake blood to Sandy's door, along with a message, "Die, Bitch!" The tongue-in-cheek approach jars with the otherwise realistic plot. Copperman has done better. Agent: Josh Getzler, HG Agency. (Jan.)
Kirkus Review
Prolific Copperman launches a new series starring a defense attorney who could give Perry Mason a run for his money. Tired of prosecuting low-level grifters in New Jersey, Sandy Moss heads to sunny LA to join Seaton, Taylor, Evans, and Bach, whose practice is limited to squeaky-clean corporate cases. Divorce settlements are as down and dirty as Seaton, Taylor gets, and then only for high-value clients like Pat Dunwoody, the star of TV legal thriller Legality, who's looking for release from his promiscuous wife, singer Patsy DeNunzio. Sandy's first assignment is to sit silently next to senior partner Junius Bach during the contentious Dunwoody-DeNunzio property negotiations, a task she fails miserably by revealing to opposing counsel her side's chief strategy. Junius is livid, but Pat so admires Sandy's spunk that he demands that Seaton, Taylor assign her to defend him after Patsy's inevitable murder. Dunwoody, who reverts to his stage name of Patrick McNabb after his wife's death, seems deeply confused about the difference between being a lawyer and playing one on TV. Not only is he unfazed by Sandy's complete lack of experience as a defense attorney (after all, if she prosecuted cases, shouldn't she know how to defend them?), he doesn't pay much attention to the judge's preferences, like having defendants not leave the country while they're awaiting trial. Even with the help of her new maybe-boyfriend, paralegal Evan D'Arbanville, and her best friend, Angie, who arrives unexpectedly from New Jersey, Sandy has her hands full keeping a lid on irrepressible McNabb, and readers won't want to miss a minute of the mayhem. In or out of the courtroom, Copperman's right on the money. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Attorney Sandy Moss upends her life, moving across the country to L.A., changing jobs from being a criminal prosecutor in New Jersey to working in family law. On her first day, during a meeting between divorcing spouses, she angers her boss, Junius Bach, while delighting their client, actor Patrick McNabb, who plays a lawyer on a popular television show. When McNabb is accused of murder, he insists Moss defend him, and Bach agrees, seemingly wanting her to fail, only offering a paralegal and an investigator to assist her in the high-profile case. Unfortunately, McNabb believes his work on the show translates to actual legal experience, exasperating Sandy and the investigator. Sandy perseveres, ultimately defending McNabb at trial while dealing with gunfire, explosions, and a kidnapping that may cost her and a good friend their lives. Sandy is a Jersey girl, a competent, tenacious, yet vulnerable heroine in a cast of vividly described characters and in a story with multiple plot twists that's enlivened with humor and set against the glittering backdrop of Hollywood.
