Crime Fiction from a Professional Eye by Lili Pâquet

Author:Lili Pâquet
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2018-08-20T16:00:00+00:00

The confusion between lawyer and murderer is then further compounded when their resemblance confuses a witness, who cannot identify which of the lawyer or client he saw running from the scene of murder (443). In this way the defense lawyer protagonist is comparable to the criminal, rather than the victim (as in novels with forensic and prosecutor protagonists).

Indeed, the ethics of defense attorneys are often questioned in the novels of Scottoline, Clark, and Alafair Burke. During Rosato’s defense of her twin, she has to fight media stories about how she is tardy in her ethics credits. She discovers that these stories were leaked to the media in order to discredit her and have her license removed, and readers learn that it is not unusual for defense attorneys to be behind in their ethics credits (146). Often the protagonists are also professionally threatened because of romantic affairs. Nate Lence writes to the Bar association to report an ethics breach by Bennie’s partner as revenge when Bennie refuses to date or represent him anymore (Scottoline Exposed 106–7). In Corrupted, Bennie dates Declan, the uncle of her client’s bully, and she is fired. When Jason rehires her as an adult, Declan reappears and gives her an ultimatum between their relationship and her client. This time she chooses her client, telling Declan, “I can’t put my personal life before my job. I did that last time, and look how it turned out” (254). In Courting Trouble, the man suing Anne Murphy’s client threatens to report her to the Bar for sleeping with his lawyer (258).

The ways that novels with private lawyers (whether litigators or defense attorneys) represent the real experiences of their authors have similarities to the novels of ex-prosecutors like Fairstein. The legal technicalities are accurate, the characters have similarities to the authors, but the narratives are embellished with conventions of the genre in order to heighten suspense and plot structure. For example, Burke writes about The Ex that, “Though every legal process in Jack’s case in authentic, some of the bumps along the way are not typical of the run-of-the-mill trial” (285). While it might seem that Scottoline’s series often tips into melodrama, the rather extraordinary plotlines are often based on reality. For example, Bennie’s discovery of her twin sister in Mistaken Identity is based on the author’s meeting of a twin sister she never knew about as an adult. In the Acknowledgments she writes about this similarity, “it should come as no surprise that authors often cannibalize their own lives for the truth that makes fiction” (563). It is not only the extraordinary that is “cannibalized.” Throughout Scottoline’s series she often uses mundane legal realities to create tension and interest. Corrupted is a good example of the use of law in Scottoline’s novels. Readers witness the research and practical difficulties in simply filing a motion and petitions. For example when Bennie files for a rehearing of Jason’s initial adjudication she has to word it creatively and use emotional blackmail to get it filed by the secretary (71–73).

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