In this thriller, the late New Yorker portrays his home town as one deeply divided by race, corruption, and self-serving ultra rich Wall street investment bankers and stock market traders. No one escapes his scorn, except for one black youth in the slums of the South Bronx who suffers apparently irreversible brain damage from a hit and run car accident.
That accident is central to the story as it involves one of those Park Avenue investment bankers and his secret lover.
The coverage stokes community outrage, enhanced by dishonest sensationalist print press and TV overage, black anger, and a dishonest clergyman and by equally unscrupulous lawyers for both the prosecution and the defence.
Set in the 80´s the overall picture of New York society is certainly not flattering and British immigrants bemoan the crudity of the Irish, Jewish, and Italian natives. When the bond trader tries to explain his work to his six year old, it’s meaninglessness becomes laughable.
There are problems with this narrative. I doubt that any « subdural concusssion », repeatedly mentioned, exists let alone causes permanent coma, and if it were a subdural hematoma it would have been treated surgically.
I fortunately have little experience with courtroom proceedings nor do I read many John Grisham or Michael Creighton novels, but it seems to me that no judge would ever tolerate, much less use, the very obscene language or the interruptions and shouting here portrayed
4/5
Thanks, Vera.
The Passionate Reader 