Tuesday, April 9, 2013

DEAD PEASANTS, Larry D. Thompson

This legal thriller came out last October and I can't believe I hadn't heard about it earlier.  However, thanks to Partners in Crime Tours I have now read it, to the detriment of household chores.  

Jack Bryant is a very wealthy man due to a successful career as a plaintiff attorney in many cases against large corporations.  He was brilliant at getting huge settlements in those cases and of course his share of the settlement was sizable.  After his last case, he suddenly announced that he was retiring.  His son was set to play football for TCU, and you know how Texans love their football, so he was moving to Fort Worth to enjoy life and watch his son's games.

The early part of the book where he is settling into an expensive house, becoming intrigued with the beautiful realtor, meeting up with his son J.R., and where  we learn about all of his cars, truck, RV, etc. is my least favorite part.  Then the story picks up as he becomes bored with retirement and sets up a pro bono legal practice in his RV in a poor section of town, thereby stirring up all kinds of trouble with the people who had been taking advantage of the poor.

That's when I decided I liked this guy and the story pulled me in like a fish on a hook.  I had no idea what "dead peasants" meant and was interested in the story of what that phrase has to do with taking money rightfully due unknowing people.  I was fooled for most of the book; Thompson led me right down the garden path to the wrong conclusion, but in retrospect I saw all the clues I had missed.  Love a book like that.

Larry Thompson is an attorney who lives in Texas so the setting and the legalities come from an author who knows what he's writing about.  I enjoyed the feeling of being in Texas throughout the story.

Recommended reading
Source:  Author via Partners in Crime Tours

5 comments:

  1. A lawyer working out of an RV sounds fun!

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  2. Sounds like a good legal thriller. The title reminds me of Gogol's classic, Dead Souls, a story of Russian serfs and landowners.

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  3. WOW!!! That is some review!!! I just loved your comment about household chores!! Thank you so much for sharing!

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  4. I immediately thought of a mystery series where the old woman from Alaska travels with her dog in am RV and solves a murder along the way.....Name escapes me but they were fun.

    This sounds good as well.

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  5. Thanks for your comments. I think you'll like this lawyer and his ways of getting what those poor clients deserve.

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