Kennedy for the Defense

Kennedy for the Defense introduces Jerry Kennedy, the "best sleazy lawyer in Boston." Kennedy (not those Kennedy's) was a popular character who comes back in 2 more Higgins novels. This charcter may be "autobiographical" in an alternate universe where Higgins didn't work as a federal prosecutor. Here, Kennedy is in his 30's, comfortable, but still in a crummy office with waiting room furniture left over from a dead dentist--and at the dangerous age where a big break with some strings looks tempting. His criminal clients (all of them) feature "Teddy" the car thief who only steals Cadilliacs, and assoorted other steady business from the underworld. His family (wife and teenage daughter) play an impotant role in the story (and in the next book "Pennance for..." both go missing in his 40's). The genius of the book is Higgins' prose style. In the Kennedy books it is reined in somewhat by the strong narrative line (a rarity in many Higgins books) and variety of courtroom scenes. Still, things are moving here and there you don't at first know about, and every character seems able to deliver a Shaksperian monologe at the drop of a hat. Seedy courtrooms in the northeast, and low-rent judicial officers are known first hand to anyone who has ever practiced law or been on trial in a state with Commonwealth in the name. Kennedy For the Defense is not "high" art like some of Higgins' books aspire to be. But as the beginning to a three part story of a man moving up and down professionally and personally from 30's to 50's, it rings a cord in any boomer professional's life. And that may be its art as a chronicle of the last three decades of 20th century America.