I seem to be reading a fair number of books lately that I just can’t finish. I barely started this book before I tossed it aside. Naked Justice is the sixth book in the Ben Kincaid legal thriller series.
Let me tell you why I stopped at page 54.
First, there’s a rookie cop first on the scene of a murder (mayor’s wife and kids found murdered), throwing up, traipsing through blood, and generally making a mess of the crime scene. Then he just has to run, and run, and run, because the mess compels him. Is it possible to be more incompetent than this? I don’t think Mayberry would train their police so badly.
Second, there’s the politically connected cop who is first in charge of the scene before the professional detective shows up. He explicitly decides not to bother with doing any crime scene protection at all because he’s sure the mayor did it. He allows another cop to make a phone call home to his wife from the telephone in the crime scene living room. He allows a neighbor to enter the house and make off with stolen cuff links. Then he argues with the head of homicide in front of the press. Then he holds a press conference at the crime scene after the head of homicide removes him from the case. It appears that someone could be more incompetent than cop #1.
The premise, from the back cover, is that Ben Kincaid is known for pulling off the impossible when defending his clients, in this case, the mayor. I figure that I, with no legal training whatsoever other than watching Judge Judy, would find this to be something other than an impossible case, as the back cover puts it. All right, I’d probably botch the job. You’d think that a politically connected mayor who’s accused of murder would have no trouble finding someone who could make mincemeat of a case messed up by cops #1 and #2.
And that just ruins the book for me. I don’t want to read a legal thriller about cleaning up after the incompetent. That’s just not interesting.
Title: Naked Justice
Author: William Bernhardt
Imprint / publisher: Fawcett Gold Medal / Random House
Publication date: February 1997
Format: Mass market paperback
Length: 437 p. (54 p. before I stopped)
ISBN-10: 0-449-00087-7
Subject: Kincaid, Ben (Fictitious character) — Fiction
Subject: Lawyers — Oklahoma — Tulsa — Fiction
Subject: Trials (Murder) — Fiction
Subject: Tulsa (Okla.) — Fiction
LC classification: PS3552.E73147 N35 1997
