Tue 27 Jun 2017
Reviewed by Barry Gardner: KATE WILHELM – The Best Defense.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[10] Comments
KATE WILHELM – The Best Defense. Barbara Holloway #2, St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, 1994. Fawcett, paperback, 1995.
Kate Wilhelm is equally well known as a science-fiction and crime writer — not enough in either field — and has written many books in both genres dating back to 1963. She’s written five books about a husband-and-wife private eye team set in Oregon, but this isn’t one of them. She is, I think, under-appreciated.
Barbara Holloway isn’t looking to take on any new cases, but when the sister of an accused baby killer comes to her and says that the woman’s public defender isn’t doing his job, she agrees to at least look into it. She finds it to be true, and also finds that a concentrated smear campaign is being waged by a local right-wing newspaper publisher — one that is quickly broadened to include her when she takes a hand. She is convinced of the woman’s innocence, which means that there is a real killer loose. As she begins to build her case, she finds tangible evidence of this.
1994 is shaping up to be my year for courtroom dramas. First William Harrington’s Town on Trial, and now this, both better than any I’ve read in years. I think this is Edgar material. Wilhelm has created an appealing and believable character in Barbara Holloway, and the rest of the characters are equally well done. The courtroom scenes are excellent, and narrative tension is maintained throughout the story.
Let me revise my opening statement and say that Wilhelm is very under-appreciated. The book, by the way, has much to say about battered women and the more conservative element of the pro-life group, and says it cogently and well. The story is brought to a successful conclusion, it should be noted, without the orgy of violence which has become so prevalent in the field.
The Barbara Holloway series —
1. Death Qualified (1991)
2. The Best Defense (1994)
3. Malice Prepense (1995), reprinted as For the Defense (1997)
4. Defense for the Devil (1999)
5. No Defense (2000)
6. Desperate Measures (2001)
7. The Clear and Convincing Proof (2003)
8. The Unbidden Truth (2004)
9. Sleight Of Hand (2006)
10. A Wrongful Death (2007)
11. Cold Case (2008)
12. Heaven Is High (2011)
13. By Stone By Blade By Fire (2012)
14. Mirror, Mirror (2017)
There are also 12 books in Kate Wilhelm’s Constance and Charlie series, the husband-and-wife PI team that Barry mentioned in passing. Not a bad resume for an author who is or will be 89 this year and is still probably better known as a SF writer. (See the comments for a correction on the number of Constance and Charlie books.)
June 27th, 2017 at 9:29 pm
I confess that I haven’t read any of Wilhelm’s mysteries, in either series. I also can’t recall reading any fannish reviews of any of them either, besides this one.
Obviously they’ve been doing well, or publishers would have stopped publishing them long before now. Otherwise not only is she under-appreciated, as Barry suggested, way back in 1994, but even worse, under-noticed — almost completely.
June 27th, 2017 at 9:54 pm
Excellent book and series by a writer of rare ability in either genre.
June 27th, 2017 at 11:45 pm
My own fault for never even trying one.
June 28th, 2017 at 5:30 am
According to Wikipedia. there are six books in the Constance and Charlie series, not 12. I’ve meant to try this series ever since reading Barry’s review, yet somehow I never have gotten one read.
I’m a big fan of her Oh, Susannah!
June 28th, 2017 at 12:41 pm
Thanks, Jeff. Here’s why my count was off. From the Fantastic Fiction website:
The Constance and Charlie series —
1. The Hamlet Trap (1987)
2. The Dark Door (1988)
3. Smart House (1989)
4. Sweet, Sweet Poison (1990)
5. Seven Kinds of Death (1992)
6. A Flush of Shadows (1995) A story collection consisting of the next five, which seem to be available separately, but as ebooks or audio books only:
7. The Gorgon Field (2012)
8. All For One (2012)
9. Sister Angel (2012)
10. Torch Song (2012)
11. With Thimbles, With Forks, And Hope (2012)
The most recent novel, and number six as such:
12. Whisper Her Name (2012)
June 30th, 2017 at 10:20 am
DEATH QUALIFIED is, not atypically for Wilhelm, a book that laughs at “genre” boundaries…it’s borderline sf and horror and inarguably fantasy as well as a legal procedural, and the subsequent Holoway novels I’ve read tend to be more straightforward crime fiction, but still fine.
June 30th, 2017 at 12:48 pm
Ah, yes. Thanks, Todd. I remember now. The borderline between genres aspect was what turned me off from that first book at the time, and that has to be why I never paid much attention to any of the others when they came along either.
July 1st, 2017 at 7:06 am
Most days, I *can* type “Holloway”…pity about MALICE PREPENSE being paperbacked as FOR THE DEFENSE. As I noted, if the crossover aspect was not your bag, the subsequent Holloways I’ve read might well suit you to the ground (along with the likes of THE PRICE OF SILENCE). I generally enjoy anything Wilhelm tackles.
July 1st, 2017 at 1:43 pm
My fault, too. If I’d spotted the misspelled Holloway, I’d have fixed it. I apologize, too, for not catching the original title of MALICE PREPENSE. That one I will go back and fix.
July 1st, 2017 at 10:04 am
I think of DEATH QUALIFIED as Science Fiction (as well as mystery, of course), and I think it’s an exceptional novel. I nominated it for a Hugo that year.
I haven’t really kept up with Wilhelm’s mysteries (too many books, too little time), though I quite liked the two or three Constance and Charlie books I read.
Some of the stories in A FLUSH OF SHADOWS were originally published in ASIMOV’S SCIENCE FICTION … obviously they cross genres as well.