Fox Is Framed

Starred review from February 16, 2015
The complex family dynamics that Smith explored in his earlier books only become more intriguing in his superlative third Leo Maxwell mystery (after 2014’s Lion Plays Rough). In 1983, when he was 10 years old, Leo found his mother’s battered corpse in their San Francisco home. His father, Lawrence, was convicted of her murder and has been behind bars for two decades. Leo’s older brother, Teddy, despite being impaired by a bullet to the brain, has succeeded in getting the conviction reversed for prosecutorial misconduct. The prosecutor intends to retry Lawrence, bolstering the old case with a newly discovered motive for the murder—jealousy—and a supposed confession Lawrence made to an ex-con he befriended in jail. As Leo tries to connect with the father he never really knew and assist in Lawrence’s defense against a new murder charge, he struggles with doubts about his father’s innocence. Smith is masterly in creating realistic courtroom scenes, including the subtleties of witness examination, and, even more impressively, enhances the trial with the human drama of the Maxwell family. Agent: Gail Hochman, Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents.

February 1, 2015
San Francisco attorney Leo Maxwell (Lion Plays Rough, 2014, etc.) faces another round of all-in-the-family murder when his father, convicted years ago of killing his wife, gets a shot at another trial that could turn him free-or put him away for keeps.Since he's dead now, it's impossible to tell why prosecutor Gary Coles failed to disclose evidence that Caroline Maxwell had what appears to be bruising sex with a man who clearly wasn't her husband very shortly before she was beaten to death with her son's baseball bat. But once the suppression of this evidence is ruled grounds for a new trial, Leo and his lawyer brother, Teddy, who've kept Lawrence Maxwell at a distance for 21 years, circle the wagons around him. The shooting that left Teddy brain-damaged five years ago (Bear Is Broken, 2013) rules out his active participation in the trial, but Leo's determined to work with Nina Schuyler, the attorney assigned to the case. And the job promises steady work, since no sooner has Lawrence identified his ex-jail mate Russell Bell as a possible snitch who just might testify that Lawrence confessed the murder to him than Bell is shot to death, giving prosecutor Angela Crowder and the SFPD's Detective Neil Shanahan not one but two more chances to convict Lawrence of first-degree murder. Dot Cooper, the nurse who's been secretly engaged to Lawrence for 10 years, provides him with an alibi, but it's far from certain how she and Lawrence will hold up under cross-examination, especially when one of them decides to go off script and raises even more problems for the defense. Fans will be rewarded not by the solution, which is considerably more muddled than the mystery itself, but by some of the sharpest courtroom cut-and-thrust since Presumed Innocent (1986).

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Starred review from March 1, 2015

Convinced for most of his life that his father, Lawrence, murdered his mother, San Francisco attorney Leo Maxwell finds it difficult to accept the idea that Lawrence might be innocent, let alone that he might get out of prison after more than 20 years. In Smith's engaging third courtroom drama, Leo and his fellow attorney brother, Teddy, still on the mend after being shot in the head during the tumultuous events of 2013's Bear Is Broken, work together to exonerate their father, who is grudgingly granted a new trial by the state. Things seem to be going their way, particularly since many of the prosecution's original witnesses--and the underhanded prosecutor himself--are dead, and no physical evidence remains for DNA testing. Then a newly discovered jailhouse snitch winds up dead. With Lawrence the prime suspect, Leo once again is questioning his father's innocence and digging into a case with consequences more dangerous and far-reaching than he ever imagined. VERDICT Smith elegantly blends courtroom suspense and family misfortune without ever slipping into melodrama; the line Maxwell family members walk between innocence and guilt becomes more blurred with every step and turn of the page.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2015
Smith skillfully blends taut courtroom drama with investigative suspense as Leo Maxwell (Lion Plays Rough, 2014) finally confronts the haunting tragedy of his mother's murder. Leo and his brother, Teddy, have won a new trial for their father, Lawrence, who has been incarcerated for 20 years for his wife's murder. They have uncovered a more likely suspect for the crime, and they are confident that the new trial will exonerate Lawrence. But the prosecution identifies an informant who claims that Lawrence confessed in prison, and when the informant is murdered, Lawrence becomes the prime suspect. Leo is never one to leave tempting questions unanswered, and so he delves into the murdered informant's past crimes and new ties to a climbing San Francisco politician, hoping that he can silence his own doubts about Lawrence's innocence. Readers will certainly find Leo's strategic critiques of his father's first trial fascinating, and the mystery is well played. Smith's greatest success, however, is in his gripping telling of the story of Leo's, Teddy's, and Lawrence's different struggles to find their own resolution to the tragedy that has haunted their lives.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)