Juror Number Eleven

I'm in the process of reading Juror Number Eleven, and so far it's pretty good. However, I find the repeated interruptions of Sister Bernadette's voice in Mariread's head annoying. It breaks up the flow of the story. Sister Bernadette's voice was also in Uncommon Justice. I hope Terry Devane reads my review. Maybe he'll put Sister Bernadette to rest.

Author Terry Devane (a pseudonym) is so accomplished that even though this is only his second legal-mystery novel, we feel his prime characters are old friends. There's the heroine, Mairead O'Clare, a talented young lawyer with lots of spunk and a physical blemish; her boss, attorney Shel Gold, a former boxer whom fate has dealt a blow to the heart; Billie Sunday, the aggressive yet motherly secretary who is raising three boys on her own; and Pontifico Murizzi, the sensitive ex-cop investigator who has his own little secret. You welcome them back and care about them even before you know what the story line is. And it's a pretty good story line. Gold's childhood friend, the gangster Big Ben Friendman, is on trial, accused of running down a Russian immigrant boy. The Gold-O'Clare team wins an acquittal but then Juror Number Eleven on the panel is found hanged shortly after calling to say she must speak with Mairead. Again a smarting district attorney charges Friedman with the capital crime and this time evoking a not guilty verdict will not be so easy. Seldom is preparation for a trial so well laid out, and Devane is positively brilliant weaving together four individual's stories while keeping the plot moving toward a most satisfactory if unexpected conclusion. Unexpected because the clue is so subtly sewn into the fabric of the narrative that it is almost impossible to detect and thus things wind up rather abruptly. But that's only a quibble, and the only quibble.

Even a gangster deserves a proper legal defense and Shel Gold agrees with that principle when he agrees to represent his childhood friend Ben Friedman on a murder charge. Shel and his associate Mairead O'Clare manage to convince the jury that their client is innocent but during the testimony and the reading of the verdict, JUROR NUMBER ELEVEN constantly stares at Mairead. When that same Juror Conchita calls Mairead to visit her at her home on a matter unrelated to the trial, the lawyer reluctantly agrees. When she arrives at the home, she find Chita's lifeless body hanging from a rope. The police rule it a homicide and when they find the victim deposited $10,000 in cash into her savings account, they think that Ben tampered with a juror and then killed her to keep from talking. When Ben is charged with Chita's murder, Shel and his associate must find the actual killer if they hope to gain a second acquittal for their client. JUROR NUMBER ELEVEN is a very realistic legal thriller starring characters it is very easy to like. Readers get to see what is involved in preparing for trial and what is involved in presenting a case. It is even effortless to like the self-admitted gangster because the reader feels the police and the district attorney's office are using his reputation against him, making seem like a scapegoat. Terry Devane is a new and shining light in the legal thriller constellation.Harriet Klausner