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Summary and Reviews of True Justice by Robert Tanenbaum

True Justice by Robert K. Tanenbaum

True Justice

by Robert K. Tanenbaum
  • Critics' Consensus (9):
  • First Published:
  • Aug 1, 2000, 416 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Jul 2001, 400 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Book Summary

A compellingly authentic and penetrating story pulled right from today's most controversial headlines.

New York Times bestselling author Robert K. Tanenbaum has more than seven million copies of his finely crafted and morally complex novels in print. In True Justice, he reaches new heights with a compellingly authentic and penetrating story pulled right from today's most controversial headlines.

For Butch Karp, chief assistant district attorney for New York County, the nightmare begins when a shocking act of negligence results in homicide. Goaded by the media's sensational publicity, the public is screaming for blood, and Karp's boss, D.A. Jack Keegan, is listening. He has ordered the prosecution of a fifteen-year-old for murder, intent on making a very public example of the girl. A Hispanic from a poor neighborhood, she's an easy mark for big-city bureaucracy and bigotry. It is Butch Karp's unpleasant job to see that the prosecution gives the public what it wants: a quick and thorough administration of hard-line justice.

Complicating matters further is Butch's wife, Marlene Ciampi, a private investigator who has decided to return to practicing law. Her first case takes her a few hundred miles south to a small Delaware town, where an equally unspeakable tragedy has taken place. Marlene, however, has the unenviable task of taking on a politically ambitious local prosecutor who is pressing to charge a suburban teenager with capital murder.

With Butch and Marlene squaring off on opposite sides of an increasingly incendiary national debate, things couldn't get any more tense...until a shocking turn of events puts their daughter, Lucy, at the center of a horrifying crime. Suddenly, everything they believe in is challenged, and they are drawn into a maelstrom of big-city politics and small-town values, where justice is sacrificed to the twin gods of public perception and expediency -- and Karp must struggle to salvage his self-respect, his career, and his life.

Chapter One

A Salvadorean Chinese man wearing a red Hebrew National apron with a black-checked kefiya around his neck and a Yankees hat on his head -- in short, a typical New Yorker -- jaywalked across Tenth Avenue at Fifty-second Street, contemplating, like so many of his fellow citizens, a minor offense. He was a food vendor, the January dusk was closing in, and he wanted to dispose of the considerable trash that had collected on his cart after twelve hours of dispensing edible garbage. He was supposed to carry it back to the cart depot, but he was now about to deposit a fat plastic bag in one of the row of trash cans he knew was kept behind the pizza joint across the street. The commercial trash collectors of the city were still recovering from a week of snow and ice, though, and he discovered that the five cans in the alleyway off Fifty-second were full, with bulging black bags stacked around them. The man looked over his shoulder to see whether anyone was watching and lifted up...

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Reviews

Media Reviews

New York Post
One hell of a writer.

New York Post
One hell of a writer.

People Magazine
[A] richly plotted, tough and funny crime series.

People Magazine
[A] richly plotted, tough and funny crime series.

Washington Times
Mr. Tanenbaum's plots are never low on suspense or interest.

Booklist
This is vintage Tanenbaum each of the deftly drawn characters wrestles with the moral dilemmas raised by the intertwined plots in a believable way, and readers will close True Justice's final page satisfied they've wrestled with those dilemmas a bit themselves.

Booklist
This is vintage Tanenbaum each of the deftly drawn characters wrestles with the moral dilemmas raised by the intertwined plots in a believable way, and readers will close True Justice's final page satisfied they've wrestled with those dilemmas a bit themselves.

Publishers Weekly
For those who prefer their legal thrillers with plenty of spice and a high IQ, Tanenbaum remains an essential addiction.

Publishers Weekly
For those who prefer their legal thrillers with plenty of spice and a high IQ, Tanenbaum remains an essential addiction.

Reader Reviews

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Read-Alikes

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