Double Tap - Hardcover

Steve Martini, a former trial attorney, has worked as a journalist and capital correspondent in the California State House in Sacramento. He has been engaged in both public and private practice of law. He lives on the US West Coast with his wife and daughter.

The "double tap" of the title refers both to ballistics evidence--two shots, only an inch apart, to the victim's head--and to the way wars have of reaching out to veterans, spattering past trauma into the present. Martini's latest legal thriller starring California defense attorney Paul Madriani weaves the theme of the past infiltrating the present throughout a daunting case. The body of an extremely wealthy businesswoman, CEO of a corporation specializing in defense, is found with two tightly grouped bullet wounds to the head, suggesting the work of an expert marksman. Enter the most likely suspect: a career soldier who was on the victim's security detail and with whom she was having an affair. As Madriani attempts to defend the uncooperative soldier, he discovers that the victim's company was involved in a potentially devastating antiterrorist program. The plot progresses in a satisfyingly logical way, from first interview with the suspect through legal machinations and on to a tense, utterly believable courtroom battle. Plot and legal knowledge are Martini's strength. Dialogue, however, is his weakness. Characters continually deliver off-the-cuff, incredibly detailed descriptions of scenes that seem much more writerly than conversational. And Martini is often guilty of overdescription--three pages of the businesswoman handing her keys to a valet parking attendant. Still, in this case, the plot carries the prose. Connie Fletcher
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