Wed 27 May 2015
PAUL LEVINE – Lassiter. No publisher stated [CreateSpace], trade paperback, 2012. (Copyright 2011.)
Even though this book is titled simply Lassiter, it is, in published order, the eighth book in Paul Levine’s “Jake Lassiter” series. Levine is also the author of the “Solomon vs. Lord” series, of which there are five,with a sixth, Bum Rap, a crossover between Lassiter and (Victoria) Lord, to be published in July.
I read and reviewed Solomon vs. Lord, the first in the other series, back in December, but this is the first time around with Lassiter for me. Since it was my first, though, I don’t know, but at times I wondered if might also be the first in the series, according to Lassiter’s own timeline.
An idle thought, no more. It stands by itself either way, no references to earlier cases, for example, but there is no reason why there couldn’t have been. Lassiter is a Miami-based lawyer, and a former Miami Dolphins football player, but pretty much a second- or third-stringer in either profession. The kind of kind of attorney, though, who defends his clients with plenty of vigor, whether or not the facts are on his side, bneding the rules when he can, and stretching them as as far as they’ll go when he can’t.
His client in this one is a woman who’s come to Miami from Ohio, looking for her sister who from all appearances got caught up in the local pornography business when she hit the city eighteen years earlier. The sister thinks Jake may have been the last person to see her alive.
The story that follows is a complicated one, and sorting it all out takes quite a while,with at least one big name in town connected to what happened way back then. Levine has a nice humorous way of looking at the world, but when it comes down to it, a guy like Lassiter is the one you want on your side, both as a bare-knuckles investigator as well as a tough-as-they-come litigator.
As a result, the book is a very pleasant way to spend a few hours. I do wish, though, that the author didn’t seem to be so obsessed with the pornography industry. Plenty of adult-styled paraphernalia and inside-the-business jargon here, more than I was interested in. Otherwise more than OK, with a more than usual amount of rough justice having been done by the book’s end.
May 27th, 2015 at 10:28 pm
I enjoy Levine’s books, and in fact I’ve recently read BUM RAP. It will be reviewed on my blog around the pub date.
May 28th, 2015 at 8:39 am
I have BUM RAP pre-ordered on Amazon. I don’t have all of the books in either series, but the idea of a crossover between the two I found very intriguing.
May 28th, 2015 at 7:09 pm
Another author on the list.
May 29th, 2015 at 10:44 am
Steve, I’m curious why you didn’t decide to start with the first in the series, since you were coming to it new. Just what was handy, or…?
May 29th, 2015 at 1:07 pm
Richard
The short version is, of course, that you’re right. It’s the one that was handy.
The longer version, I’m afraid, is boring. But since you asked, I’ll tell it anyway. After I read the first Solomon and Lord story, and reviewed here on the blog last December, I discovered that Levine had written another series, the Jake Lassiter books. Not remembering whether I’d bought them when they first came out, but assuming that maybe I had and forgotten about them, I bought the first one I know I couldn’t already have. And this was it.
Used to be that I could remember all the books I have. Can’t do it any more.