The Color of Law

This thriller includes a good mystery and a tongue-in-cheek look at the legal profession. The son of a Texas millionaire senator and presidential candidate is murdered, apparently by Shawanda Jones, a hooker. A. Scott Fenney, a handsome, arrogant corporate lawyer, is appointed by a powerful federal judge to represent her. Whether portraying poor blacks or hotshot attorneys and social- climbing Dallas society wives, Hoye clearly portrays the characters and situations. He memorably masters little girl voices for Shawanda's and A. Scott's precocious daughters. Using outstanding vocal flexibility, he invests his narration with a sense of foreboding as A. Scott's world slowly disintegrates. S.C.A. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

July 25, 2005
A. Scott Fenney, the hotshot young Dallas attorney of Gimenez's debut, has a beautiful house, an idle, social-climbing wife and a spoiled daughter; his most lucrative client is local magnate Tom Dibrell, whom he regularly rescues from sexual harassment suits. When Clark McCall, the no-account son of Texas' senior senator (and presidential hopeful), is murdered, Fenney is forced by his firm to pro bono the suspect, heroin-addicted prostitute Shawanda Jones. While admitting to the crime, Jones claims it was self-defense, and refuses to plead out to avoid the death penalty—giving Fenney fits. With Jones's life on the line, Fenney agonizes about whether he can do the trial, losing wife, job, and country club membership as he slowly uncovers the truth about McCall. Along the way, Fenney takes custody of Jones's precocious daughter, Pajamae, in a cross-cultural subplot with more cliché than life-lesson. A former Dallas attorney, Gimenez offers an entertaining window onto the city's legal world, but he telegraphs most of the story, and his attempts at negotiating Dallas's race and class conflicts fall flat; whether platitudinous or wise-cracking, the minor characters unintentionally reinforce the stereotypes the book works so hard to combat. Agent, Liv Blumer
.

A big-firm Dallas lawyer loses everything while gaining his self-respect in this exciting story of politics, greed, and murder. Asked by a judge to defend an African-American prostitute, single mother, and heroin addict, Scott Fenney reluctantly agrees although the victim is the son of a senator with presidential ambitions. Brian Keith Lewis adopts a confidential tone as he becomes Fenney, other cogs in the legal machinery, the senator, the accused (who refuses to plead guilty), and, most important, a pair of 9-year-old girls, one the lawyer's daughter and one the prostitute's. Their relationship as seen by author and reader makes this abridged but plausible story stand out. J.B.G. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine