The paperbackers

It appears that Grisham first set out to deal with the fallibility of the legal system and the possibility of false confessions,before deciding to tell a human story. The book throws up no big surprises,but it is a taut tale that is neatly told.

After Grisham comes “the next Grisham”. “As good as Grisham or your money back,” screams the cover of The Common Lawyer (Hachette,Rs 295). But,no,the author Mark Gimenez is no Grisham. He doesn’t share the latter’s deftness of writing or command over legal thrillers. The Common Lawyer,predictably,deals with a commonplace lawyer,Andy Prescott,who specialises in traffic law,from his office located above a tattoo parlour. Owning neither a hedge fund nor a girlfriend,nor a Beemer – he has nothing to lose.

Andy,as summed up by a friend,suffers from “delayed adolescence”. His life is a series of beers and women. He has a penchant for comparing the women in his life to the bikes he races. Change comes in the shape of Russell Reeves,a desperate millionaire,looking for cure for a rare form of leukaemia that has afflicted his son. He comes to Andy for help. When Reeves asks too much of him,Andy turns out to be the good guy with a conscience.

Gimenez enjoys the dramatic and sets up situation after situation with much theatrics. “Russell Reeves had everything money could buy but his life wasn’t perfect. Because his only child was dying. Would die. Unless his father saved him.” Two-word sentences provide the cymbals-crashing background score. “Would die”,“Her child”,“Their child”,“She cried”,“She was” are just a few of these theatrical and totally unnecessary cliffhangers.

If you have an appetite for the gruesome and a taste for the bloody,then Karen Rose’s macabre suspense novel I Can See You (Hachette,Rs 295) might be your choice for night-time reading. After being disfigured by a lunatic,Eve Wilson finds refuge in the virtual world,role-playing in an online game called Shadowland. But soon a killer prowls Shadowland,looking for his next victim among its members. Eve must befriend detective Noah Webster and hunt down the psycho,who always seems to be one step ahead.

Woven around a “Predator”,a “Protector” and an “Avenger”,this revels in the perverse and the ghastly. When a book opens with a woman in a plunging red dress and five-inch red stilettos hanging from the ceiling,you know what to expect. When you learn that her eyelids have been glued open,it is time to steel yourself for worse. I Can See You often reads like a how-to for serial killers,with the torments of victims and the derangement of the killer brought out in lurid detail. People are jabbed with injections,paralysed with sedatives,bound in straitjackets and then exposed to their worst fears.