The Jezebel Remedy

April 6, 2015
Clark, whose Southern legal thrillers (The Legal Limit) feature a unique blend of intricate plotting and comedy, stumbles in his latest about the fight over a mysterious, and potentially lucrative, chemical compound. Joe and Lisa Stone are an attractive pair of married lawyers in Martinsville, Va., known for their fairness in helping out the townspeople in all manner of disputes. One of their frequent clients is a “legal hypochondriac” and cat lady named Lettie VanSandt, who calls 911 to complain so frequently that the dispatcher has compiled a “Best of” CD of her ravings. VanSandt files endless lawsuits and patent claims, but when her trailer explodes after a visit from representatives of a sinister pharmaceutical company, Benecorp, it seems as if one of her crackpot inventions, a skin balm, may have actually been valuable. As the Stones wade deeper into the case, they each compromise their integrity in an effort to combat a well-funded opponent as skilled at manipulating the legal system as they are. The central plot is thin, the subplots sap the novel’s momentum, the resolution depends less on legal wrangling than luck, and the dialogue lacks Clark’s previous punch: “Great googly moogly... what a hodgepodge of colorful lies. It’s a bushel
basket’s worth of deceit and half-truths.” Clark’s concoction could have used some more tinkering in the lab.

May 15, 2015
One character says it all: "Hired guns and secret formulas. Damn." On the other hand, that's not quite all there is to this fourth crime novel by Clark, who's also a Virginia circuit court judge. Certainly there's at least one secret formula at stake. But before all that happens, there's the matter of a cranky, tattooed, stray-animal-collecting recluse named Lettie VanSandt, who's found dead in a house fire set off by cooking crystal methamphetamine. The part about hard drugs emits a faintly fishy smell to her lawyers, Joe and Lisa Stone, a hip, happily married couple who run a mom-and-pop practice in a southern Virginia county still reeling from recession. "Lettie's a lot of things, but she's not a druggie," Joe says. They set their doubts aside for a bit while working on Lettie's estate. In the process, they discover that drug dealers are, indeed, involved; but only the more corporate, commercially legitimate kind who want something Lettie discovered and will stop at nothing to get it. While lives and reputations are in the balance, Lisa's wrestling with her conscience over a marital indiscretion with implications that hover above the wrangling, haggling, and stalking that pervade this story. At times, Clark gets wrapped up in legal procedure and technical verisimilitude that threaten to waylay the plot's momentum. Even the adultery angle seems to have, at best, an extraneous relationship with everything else that's going on. For all the book's shortcomings, its snappy repartee, shrewd regional observations, and quirky characterizations help one understand why Clark's been compared to the likes of Elmore Leonard and, especially, Carl Hiaasen. Indeed, Clark seems to be doing for contemporary Virginia's strip-mall suburbs what Hiassen has done for South Florida's urban playgrounds and remote swamps: bringing out its dark comedy while identifying its criminal tendencies. Clark seems to potentially have a good thing here with Joe and Lisa Stone, who come across as a laid-back, country-rock spin on Nick and Nora Charles. They deserve another (and, yes, better) chance.

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Starred review from May 1, 2015

Clark (The Legal Limit) spends his days as a Virginia circuit court judge, which explains why he is able to portray the inner workings of the legal system with ease and dexterity. It also accounts for why his latest effort is only the fourth book the author has published in 15 years, making his name an unfamiliar one to many legal thriller readers. However, this fast-paced and delightfully unpredictable tale of Joe and Lisa Stone's legal battles on behalf and because of their eccentric client, animal hoarder and would-be-inventor Lettie VanSandt, may accomplish much toward making Clark's a household name. Not only do the frequent plot twists keep the reader glued to the page, but Clark's depiction of life in rural Virginia and the depth and sensitivity of his character portrayals--particularly that of Lisa Stone's struggles with the ups and downs of her marriage--make the book memorable for much more than its clever legal machinations. VERDICT Recommend this book to fans of Scott Turow and John Grisham, then don't be surprised when they come back looking for more. [See Prepub Alert, 12/14/15.]--Nancy McNicol, Hamden P.L., CT

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2015
Lisa and Joe Stone have been married for 20 years and are law partners who run their own firm. They've made a fair living representing clients in cases ranging from divorces to insurance settlements. Lisa has just come off of a hard year, having lost both her parents with no real warning. Her discontent has spread to her marriage: Must Joe really hold a shareholders' meeting to decide on replacing the gutters when they're the only two shareholders? Joe, meanwhile, a man of endless patience, has spent countless hours pacifying one of his main clients, the eccentric, paranoid Petty Lettie VanSandt, who has had run-ins with almost everyone in their small Virginia town. When Lettie is killed in a house fire that officials suspect was caused by Lettie cooking meth, Joe and Lisa must settle her will. But what looks to be a fairly straightforward procedure turns into a legal nightmare involving ruthless pharmaceutical executives. Clark delivers a rollicking, comic legal thriller that encompasses false disguises, secret assignations, and a colorful cast of scene-stealing secondary characters. Solid entertainment from the reliable Clark (The Legal Limit, 2008).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)