Sabin Willett

An ambitious novel that requires more talent than the author possesses to pull it off. Blurbs mention Tom Wolfe; but I've read Tom Wolfe and Willett isn't close. Where Wolfe uses his reportorial observations to create bite, Willett overwrites, trying to dazzle, but simply fizzling. So what should come off sharp and crisp, is soggy and overdone. However, to give the author his due, the denouement (?) is unexpected, and raises the question of personal responsibility in an age of no accountability and "Heck of a job, Brownie" malfeasance.… (meer)

At 7:00 am in a Boston boardroom, there's a disaster in the making. High in an office tower in the heart of the financial district, lawyers and bankers are fighting a deadline to close an $840,000,000 leveraged buyout. Under the pressure of the crowded agenda, no one notices that a zero has been dropped from the mortgage document. The papers are signed, cheers and applause roar from the boardroom and the fuse of a time bomb is lit. When it explodes, there will be hell to pay. As the partners of Freer, Motley, the presiding law firm, will discover, they are collectively and personally liable to their client to make up the multimillion-dollar shortfall.

And so begins an accelerating and dire chain of events. Freer, Motley's senior partner is found dead, and its brightest young associate is charged with murder. The firm needs a fall guy, and John Shepard, brilliant but arrogant and recently passed over for partner fills the role to perfection. Defending John Shepard in a Boston court is going to be a career buster. No one wants the job, and no one understands why Ed Mulcahy accepts the case, even if he is Shepard's friend but they don't know that he's already in way too deep to walk away.… (meer)