Book Review: A Gambler's Jury by Victor Methos (2019 Edgar Nominee)

A Gambler's Jury

Author: Victor Methos

Publisher: Amazon Publishing

Date of Publication: February 27, 2018

Pages: 336

     A Gambler's Jury is one of six novels nominated for the 2019 Best Mystery Novel Edgar Award.  The other five are: The Liar's Girl by Catherine Ryan Howard, House Witness by Mike Lawson, Down to the River Unto the Sea by Walter Mosley , Only to Sleep by Lawrence Osborne, and A Treacherous Curse by Deanna Raybourne.  This is the fourth of the six which I have reviewed so far.

     You've got to love a book which starts out with the sentence: "It was all fun and games until I showed up to court so hungover that my head felt like it was going to explode."  Such is the life for Salt Lake City defense attorney Dani Rollins.  Alone and adrift in a life full of booze and bad decisions, Dani gets a new client.  A couple brings in their adopted 17 year old son who is mentally challenged.  He has been arrested in the company of some other (non-mentally challenged) teens from his high school and charged with distribution of drugs.  Dani assumes the kid has been used by the other teens, although the police see it otherwise.  Things don't add up when her client is charged as an adult and faces a potentially long jail sentence.  In between brooding over her ex-husband's new wife an the son she has lost custody of, Dani begins an investigation which circuitously leads in a myriad of directions.  

     The setting is Salt Lake City and its surrounding counties.  This is a nice change from the usual Los Angeles or New York locales for mystery novels.  The author, a seasoned criminal-defense and civil-rights lawyer himself, deftly describes the peculiarities of the justice system in Utah.  The characters are all very human and very believable, although you want to smack Dani any number of times as she unleashes her temper and sarcasm in the courtroom.  Despite her faults, Dani has her client's best interests at heart.  The parents inexplicably abandon their handicapped son when he turns 18 and Dani takes him in until she can secure proper placement.  She works diligently to defend her client against odds which are stacked very high against him for reasons that initially are unclear.

     The ending has a neat twist of plot which was actually fairly predictable almost from the outset.  In retrospect, there were key clues in the early chapter describing Dani's initial consultation with this family.  I enjoyed A Gambler's Jury and found it to be a very worthy nominee for the 2019 Edgar for best mystery novel.  I will look forward to reading other books by this author. 

Book Review: Down the River unto the Sea by Walter Mosley (2019 Edgar Winner)

Down to the River unto the Sea

Author: Walter Mosley

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Date of Publication: February 20, 2018

Pages: 336

     Down to the River Unto the Sea is one of six novels nominated for the 2019 Best Mystery Novel Edgar Award.  The other five are: The Liar's Girl by Catherine Ryan Howard, House Witness by Mike Lawson, A Gambler's Jury by Victor Lethos, Only to Sleep by Lawrence Osborne, and A Treacherous Curse by Deanna Raybourne.  This is the third of the six which I have reviewed so far.

     Walter Mosley is a prolific and much admired author who has published over 43 books including the Easy Rawlins mysteries as well as short fiction and non-fiction.  He has won an O. Henry Award, a PEN American Lifetime Achievement Award and a Grammy.  This novel is the first to feature private investigator Joe King Oliver.

     Oliver is a former NYPD detective who lost his job as the result of a frame.  He is convinced he was set up by his former police brothers.  After incarceration he has worked for ten years as a PI in New York City (the author's hometown).  One day a young attorney comes to his office with evidence that a controversial social activist who is being tried for murdering two NYC police officers has also been framed.  There are enough similarities to Joe's own case that he decides to chase down the slim evidence and see if he can exonerate the accused cop-killer as well as clear his own name.

     The plot is a bit circuitous, to say the least, but does end in a satisfying albeit imperfect ending.  The writing in this novel is sparkling, especially when describing the characters:

"Juan was a smallish bronze-skinned man with a debonair mustache and eyes that had somewhere else to be."

or

"Willa departed, and for a while I was alone and at peace the way a soldier during World War I was at peace in the trenches waiting for the next attack, the final flu, or maybe mustard gas seeping over the edge of a trench that might be a grave."

Mosley also has a poetic way of describing places which adds deep atmosphere to the story and sets the tone for the scenes to follow:

"On the south side of the small town, there stood an abandoned church.  I say abandoned, but what I mean is deconsecrated.  It was surrounded by an eighteen-foot stone wall.  The only entree was through a remote-control iron gate.  The rectangular brick structure loomed at  a height of at least two and a half stories.  Twelve slender stained-glass windows ran from the ground to the eaves of the steeply slanted, dark-green-tiled roof.  On one end was a silo-like cylindrical steeple, also made of brick;  it rose ten feet above the rest of the structure.  There was a satellite dish at the very center of the extreme-angled lower roof."

     The author also has a keen eye for social issues.  He addresses sexism, police brutality and corruption, economic disparity and the insidious and subtle racism that still pervades our contemporary society.  He also wrestles with the very adult concepts of compromising your values to achieve the greater good and the fact that not all stories have happy or even satisfying conclusions.

   Read Down the River unto the Sea by Walter Mosley for the spectacular writing.  Read it because of the astute social commentaries contained within.  Read it because it is a great story.  Read it because it may very well be the 2019 Edgar Award winner for the best mystery novel of the year.  Just read it!

Addendum:  This novel was selected by the Mystery Writers of America as winner of the 2019 Edgar Award for the Best Mystery Novel of the year!