Lion Plays Rough

November 4, 2013
At the start of Smith’s tight second Leo Maxwell mystery (after 2013’s Bear Is Broken), the young Oakland, Calif., attorney receives a collect call from Santa Rita Jail. The man on the other end introduces himself as Jamil Robinson and, because he feels it unsafe to talk over the phone, sends his sister, Lavinia Martin, to speak with Leo in person. Lavinia claims that the Oakland police have framed Jamil. Despite his suspicions about the story, Leo goes to the DA with evidence that points to police corruption, only to discover he’s been set up—the real Jamil has not only never heard of Leo but does not have a living sister. As Leo continues to pursue the truth, he puts his life at risk and discovers a trail of crooked police activity that leads disturbingly close to home. This finely paced mystery is full of intelligent plot twists and should appeal to any fan of good writing. Agent: Gail Hochman, Brandt & Associates.

January 15, 2014
Now that he's solved the shooting that left his brother Teddy seriously disabled (Bear Is Broken, 2013), Oakland attorney Leo Maxwell is ready to juggle a trio of cases that put him on the hot seat. Beware of women who knock you off your bicycle with their convertibles and then press you to take an iffy case. The woman in question is Lavinia Martin, who, instead of sending Leo a $200 check for his broken wheel, offers him $10,000 to protect her brother, who already violated his probation when Detective Eric Campbell found a gun in his car, from the charges that are sure to follow when the cops link that gun to a recent murder. The only trouble is that when Leo, who's already skirted the law by photographing a meeting between Campbell and suspicious-looking private security agent Damon Watson, maneuvers his way into a meeting with the imprisoned Jamil Robinson, his supposed client insists he never hired Leo--in fact, his only sister is dead. Clearly, Leo's been set up to take the heat off the police corruption case he thought he'd cracked, but by whom: Jamil's heavy-duty attorney, Nikki Matson? The vanished Lavinia Martin? Campbell himself? Before he can answer this question, Leo will have to defend Marty Scarsdale, a client accused of molesting a 13-year-old friend of his daughter's, and reopen the murder case of Jeremy Walker, who was shot to death last summer and whose mother now wants Teddy to marry her even more impaired daughter Tamara, who doesn't even remember that she was in a therapy group with Teddy. "We're lawyers, not private detectives," Leo's boss, Jeanie, Teddy's ex-wife, tells him. In his sophomore outing, though, Leo shines a lot more brightly as a private detective than as a lawyer.

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December 1, 2013
In Smith's debut (Bear Is Broken, 2012), fledgling San Francisco attorney Leo Maxwell earned his investigative chops by tracking down the shooter who incapacitated his genius attorney brother, Teddy. Now Leo's life is feeling hopelessly tame: he's arguing defense cases for his sister-in-law's firm and living with Teddy, who's struggling to recover. So, when a femme fatale pleads with him to prove her brother is being framed for murder by a dirty cop and a drug kingpin, he squashes ethical misgivings and takes the case. Using the sister's information, Leo snaps damaging photos of the pair. But when he triumphantly delivers his evidence to the DA, the game changes. His supposed client doesn't have a sister and is already being represented by the city's most feared underworld attorney. With the DA investigating Leo's ethics, and the drug lord in question out for blood, Leo's only option is uncovering the sister's motives. This entry bears less emotional weight than the debut but boasts greater polish in its blend of ironic narration, classic noir overtones, and artfully drafted characters.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)