Mon 8 Dec 2014
PAUL LEVINE – Solomon vs. Lord. Bantam, paperback original; 1st printing, 2005.
This is the first book this long (547 pages) that I’ve actually finished in quite a while. I’ve started some, don’t get me wrong, but they’ve always been put down with me fully intending to pick them up again the very next day, but for whatever reason, good or bad, eventually I never do.
What’s interesting (to me, anyway) is that the book was marketed as Fiction, not as a Mystery novel, even though both Solomon (Steve) and Lord (Vicky) are lawyers, and much of the book is taken up with with two legal cases, one of them a murder, or so the D.A. assumes.
What the book really is, though, is a romance. One of those “when will they get together” love stories mostly written by women. Not “will they or won’t they get together,” since that’s a forgone conclusion, even though they are total opposites in character. She’s prim and proper, organized to the max, while he’s the kind of guy who wings it in court, playing even loosey-goosier in legal proceeedings than Perry Mason ever dreamed of.
They start out on opposite sides of the courtroom, but losing the case to him gets her fired, so of course even though she “hates” him, they end up on the same side, defending a clone of Anna Nicole Smith (fictional) accused of killing her husband after an extended bout of kinky sex.
She also ends up representing him in his attempt to gain custody of his autistic nephew Bobby, who has been abandoned by his drug-addled mother, which is another story altogether. I also have not mentioned that she (Lord) already has a fiancé, a wealthy, well-bred kind of guy whom women looking for security in their lives would beat down the doors for to grab onto as a husband.
It is still hard to explain why this book needs as many pages as it does. Perhaps that is where the real mystery comes in. The book is often laugh-out-loud funny and definitely vulgar at times but not verging into even the borderline obscene and never ever as explicit in bedroom details as it might have been if it were a Harlequin romance written under today’s standards.
It all ends happily, needless to say, with many more adventures in sight.
The Solomon vs. Lord series —
1. Solomon vs. Lord (2005)
2. The Deep Blue Alibi (2006)
3. Kill All The Lawyers (2006)
4. Trial & Error (2007)
5. Habeas Porpoise (2014)
December 8th, 2014 at 3:04 pm
Good or bad, I may have to read a book called HABEUS PORPOISE. There are some things you just can’t not do.
I’ve long held that the best mystery fiction is no longer in the mystery section, but the mainstream fiction and literary fiction section.
December 8th, 2014 at 3:33 pm
I read a lot of this book on the plane to the Edgars about 8 years ago and got a big kick out of it. Then at the Edgar Dinner, I ran into Paul Levine and got to tell him so.
December 8th, 2014 at 4:12 pm
Steve,
You can blame publishers and prices for those 500 + page books. They rightfully assume no one will pay $7.95 for a 200 page book. 90,000 words is considered a short novel today and about average length.
Some genre novels still get by at shorter length, but they are becoming rarer.
Bill
You’re one of the exceptions to my rule about the mystery section.
December 8th, 2014 at 5:58 pm
Bill
This would be a perfect book for a long trip by plane. It’s long and it’s fun to read but even so you can put it down when they bring the pretzels and drinks cart by and pick right back where you left off whenever you want.
Another reason why big thick books sell. The newsstands at airports are stacked full of them. No wimpy short Gold Medal type books need apply.
December 9th, 2014 at 1:57 am
I suspect that I’m going to have to read this, and if I enjoy it I will find myself searching out the others. Another series—Damn you, Steve!!!!!!!
December 9th, 2014 at 9:52 am
Loved the debut, but I quit part way through the second when the romance between the lead characters overwhelmed everything else. Maybe I quit on “The Deep Blue Alibi” too soon. I may have to try one of the later ones to see if I did quit the series too soon…
December 9th, 2014 at 11:33 am
I was wondering if that might happen. I’ve started to watch many a TV series in which the basic premise was used up in the very first episode, leaving the rest of the series with no place to go. In the case of Lord and Solomon, the tension between them in book one — the attraction they have for each other despite Lord already having a boy friend — where does it go once she dumps the guy? The dynamic has to be completely changed. I’ll have to find my copy of ALIBI to see if I have the same reaction as you, Rick.
Bradstreet: So maybe not all is lost!