"Briskly told and well-drawn... A fast-paced tale of justice in action and a remarkably accurate portrait of a trial lawyer's daily grind."
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Kirkus Reviews
IT'S 1970, AND AMERICA HAS A DIRTY SECRET
The author of "ZigZag"-"One of the boldest and most original first novels to appear in a long time" (Carl Hiaasen)-reinvents the legal drama popularized by Michael Connelly, John Grisham and Scott Turow. Human beings are being warehoused in substandard nursing homes, neglected and left to die under suspicious circumstances. But this is America in the 1970s, and no one seems to know about it, much less care. Rookie lawyer Connor J. Devlin discovers this secret underworld when he meets One-Armed Lucky, a cagey Vietnam vet and bail bondsman with an uncanny knowledge of the law. Lucky refers Devlin's new client, a heartbroken but tenacious woman who's convinced that neglectful nursing home care killed her mother Ann, a greyhound-racing devotee and Lucky's best friend. But Devlin has a big problem. Taking on a nursing home for wrongful death in the 1970s-one backed by a corporation owned by a hardnosed Texas industrialist-will be almost impossible. Almost. In this Devlin series debut, a "briskly told and well-drawn" (Kirkus Reviews) legal drama, Landon J. Napoleon offers all the thrills of John Grisham and other masters of the genre, while proving that "legal procedure can provide as much action, suspense and whodunit excitement as any shootout or car chase." "
The Rules of Action
is one of the most compelling and entertaining books I have ever read on the strategy and gamesmanship of the legal process."
-Former Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods