Book Review: A CONFLICT OF INTEREST, by Adam Mitzner

Adam Mitzner
A CONFLICT OF INTEREST
Gallery Books, 2011
371 pages
Legal Thriller

I read this book with a growing knot in my gut! My anxiety grew. There was no way to turn pages fast enough!

Adam Mitzner's debut thriller is comparable to when John Grisham and Scott Turrow were at their best. That is to say that A CONFLICT OF INTEREST falls into the same legal thriller vein as A TIME TO KILL and PRESUMED INNOCENT. I can't recall the last time I read a courtroom drama with as much intensity and suspense. For the recorded I am following this author. On Amazon. On Goodreads. On Twitter . . . I want to --NO-- I need to know when more books are released (FYI I have the next three of his ready to go. Reviews forthcoming!)

Okay. Enough gushing over Mr. Mitzner.

Alex Miller is an attorney at a prestigious law firm. A partner. He makes a solid living, has a beautiful wife, and cute-as-a-button five year old daughter. The book starts with the funeral of his father. The man died rather young, and unexpected.

At the funeral, his father's long-time friend, Michael Ohlig approaches Miller about a legal issue. He owns OPM Boutique. A small brokerage firm. The government is after him for securities fraud. A terrible stock hit the market. A venture that provided 100% salmonella-free eggs needed backing. Stock went south. Investors lost their shirts. Criminal proceedings pending. Insisting on his innocence, Ohlig is looking to Miller for help.

OPM is a big fish. The partners in Miller's law firm are thrilled at the retainer size, and billable hours potential. Devising a Defense Team to represent other OPM key employees, and taking on rising-star junior partner Abby Sloane, Miller gets to work to prove Ohlig's innocence to the world.

Pushing through a suddenly turbulent sea of discovery, a relatively promising case becomes anything but textbook as the prosecution's witnesses disappear, bribes are made, and back room deals are cut. Suddenly, Miller is knocked off balance. His relationship is unsteady, and spending time with Sloane is muddying his line of virtue.

Hidden truths keep surfacing.

Miller is afraid he is drowning as he searches for answers, for truth. Things only go from bad to worse when murder is committed and a surprising arrest is made. Miller stands to lose everything, his career, his family, his sanity in Adam Mitzner's A CONFLICT OF INTEREST.

Phillip Tomasso
Author of the Severed Empire Series,
and The Vaccination Trilogy

Book Review: SACRED, by Dennis Lehane

Dennis Lehane
SACRED
William Morrow, 1997
320 pages
Crime / Private Detective

Back years ago I read MYSTIC RIVER and SHUTTER ISLAND. Loved them. Recently, I decided to read all of Lehane's novels. I will say this, I am absolutely enjoying myself.

SACRED is the third book in the Kenzie & Gennaro series. (Perhaps the most famous is the 4th, GONE, BABY GONE). In this thriller, Kenzie and Gennaro are kidnapped. Stuffed into a trunk. And delivered to their next potential client.

A dying billionaire wants his daughter found. She is depressed, alone, and he is worried about her. To make the case more complicated, the last private eye sent to do the job, Jay Becker, is now missing as well. Worse still, Becker was Patrick Kenzie's mentor.

After being paid an extraordianry amount of money, Kenzie and Gennaro agree to take on the job. Their efforts land them in Florida. Re-tracing the woman's last known whereabouts takes them directly into harm's way.

Nothing is as it seems. Up is down. Front is back. Right is left. The clues uncovered only make the waters more muddied, and it isn't long before Kenzie and Gennaro find themselves in deep, broke, and their very lives hanging in the balance!

A fantastic edition. A fast read. And SACRED only makes me want more! The chemistry between Kenzie and Gennaro is tense, the banter hysterical, and the dynamics dynamite. I cannot wait to read GONE, BABY GONE next!

Phillip Tomasso
Author of the Severed Empire Series
and The Vaccination Trilogy

Poetry Review: TEACHING MY MOTHER HOW TO GIVE BIRTH, by Warsan Shire

Warsan Shire

TEACHING MY MOTHER HOW TO GIVE BIRTH
Mouthmark
Poetry

Through Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth the empowerment of women becomes like a burning tempest kindled up by the rawness of Warsan Shire’s words. The poems are also about reality, the horrors that some people have to face in a word driven by war. They carry with them such human depth, none more so than the poem In Love and In War. 

“To my daughter I will say
‘when the men come, set yourself on fire.’”

The poem is only two lines, but it establishes the tone for the rest of the work; it acts like a summary for one of her strongest ideals, that of personal and cultural integrity.

Shire does not compromise. The idea of setting oneself on fire is tangible to suicide. The men are coming, the soldiers and sons of war, so let us end it before they can touch us. This can be read as an act by a woman burning herself to avoid the objectifying effects that are coming her way. Historically speaking, the women of an invaded country often become the greatest victims. We all know what humans can do when in a blood frenzy. By committing suicide these daughters can avoid the worse of such possible crimes. But the act of setting oneself on fire can be read in a different way, a much brighter way.

Like all great poetry, multiple readings come out of Shire’s words. I like to think of the fire as a metaphorical flame of individuality. When the invaders come, set your hearts ablaze and remember who you are; remember your culture; remember your language: remember you. When the men come do no lose this sense of you to the superimposing of another’s beliefs. Become angry, fight against it, rage at the injustice and learn how to beat it. But at the very root of it all, never ever forget. In such an idea Shire establishes the authority of the individual’s voice.

How about love? As a woman entering a relationship set yourself on fire in the same sense, do not become meek and docile: do not allow him to take over. This reading feels like one of the strongest. If you compare this to the ideas that are manifested in the spoken word poem For Women Who are Difficult to Love it becomes more evident. The ideas empower women and suggest that if you are volatile, if your personality is like that of a fire, do not quench yourself: carry on. Be yourself, he is not worthy if he cannot love you for you: keep that fire burning.

There’s also another reading that comes here, tangible to the first instance of suicide. When men are near and love is close, set yourself on fire and avoid heartache. But, I do not overly belief in this one; it can be read in the poem, but when comparing it to Shire’s body of work it seems far too pessimistic. Shire is about empowering women not destroying life. She is a humanist; thus, there is much to be taken from her words. They are words that need to be heard now more than ever as the world becomes increasingly multi-cultural and transgendered, understanding the perspective of others is vital for the development of a more accepting world. This is a very powerful collection of poetry.

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Bookworm Sean is a book obsessed English student who can usually be found over on Goodreads raving about his latest read. Recently, poetry has become one of his favorite literary forms of expression; thus he has started to read more and more of it. Look for Sean on Facebook, as well!