Star Witness

This is a great book by a great author. Star Witness captures the deadly narcissism of Hollywood perfectly. Morley Winograd

"Star Witness", Dudley W. Buffa, NY, GP Putnam's Sons, 2003 ISBN 0-399-153034-X, HC, 388 pg., 9 1/4" x 6 1/4". This 5th of 7 Joseph Antonelli novels finds the protagonist criminal defense attorney musing over the death of Hollywood star Mary Margaret Flanders, a.k.a. Marian Walsh, whose nude body was found in the pool of her Beverly Hills mansion. The funeral was shown on TV & that night Antonelli is awakened by the star's husband, Stanley Roth, who solicits him to become his defense sttorney. He leaves his live-in love Marissa (Kane) in Sausalito & is flown to Los Angeles where he meets the notables: -- husband Stanley, head of Blue Zephyr Pictures; Michael Wirthlin & Louis Griffin, associates; Walker Bradley, actor & Julie Evans, executive assistant to Roth. We learn Mary Margaret died violently, a throat slashing, and that husband Stanley, the only known person in the home was prone to violent temper. We are introduced to the courtroom Judge Hon. Rudolph G. Honigman & the aggressive Prosecutrix Annabelle Van Roten. Other principals include Jack Walsh, dead star's father, & Detective Crenshaw. Just when you think the plot is over, it abruptly changes direction & we find unsuspected surprizes that nicely tie up the loose ends gratifyingly. This, of the 6 Antonelli novels I've read to date, is the finest & most satisfying. The book deals with revenge, power, position & character in a brilliant manner.

This is one of the best novels of the law/courtroom/murder mystery thrillers I've read - and I read them all. The characters are so finely drawn, the writing itself so good, and the plot so engrossing that it just sweeps you along. A book that is very difficult to put down; you just have-to keep reading. Author Buffa is one of the very best at what he does.

She is a world famous movie star married to the director who gave her a break that turned her into an American icon. When she is found murdered in her swimming pool, a stocking around her neck and her throat slit to the bone, the husband calls famous defense attorney Joseph Antonelli because he thinks the police will arrest him for the crime of premeditated murder. Joseph meets his client Stanley Roth, a few minutes before the police arrest the director.Antonelli bails him out and agrees to defend him but there is no evidence that he can find that will exonerate his client. The only three people on the estate at the time of death were Stanley, the victim and the maid. Stanley's clothing in his hamper had his wife's blood on it and there is no evidence that Mary Margaret Flanders had any enemies. The trial is long, hard and nerve-wracking because for once Antonelli believes he is defending an innocent man.STAR WITNESS is a great legal thriller, one that takes readers into the heart of Hollywood where appearances are everything and motives seem murky. The reader see the toll a high visible murder trial takes out of a lawyer, who in this case at least, defends a client more interested in creating another movie, certain he will be found innocent. It is fascinating to watch how a prosecutor could make a defendant look guilty with purely circumstantial evidence. D.W. Buffa keeps readers engrossed in this fulfilling drama that ends in a way nobody could have predicted.Harriet Klausner

When you're scheduling your reading time, block out a large enough chunk to read STAR WITNESS --- twice. You're going to need every minute of it. STAR WITNESS succeeds on several levels, not the least of which is that it is perhaps the ultimate novel about how the film industry works --- and how it does not.STAR WITNESS is the fifth novel by former defense attorney D.W. Buffa. Over the course of five novels, his protagonist Joe Antonelli has been moving southward down the West Coast --- beginning in Portland, down to San Francisco and Sausalito. As STAR WITNESS opens, readers find Antonelli to be still ensconced, however semi-permanently, with the enigmatic and softly erotic Marissa Kane, whom he first met in THE LEGACY. Antonelli is living with Kane in her cliffside home by the Bay when he reticently responds to a late-night call that will move him, at least temporarily, to the madness of southern California.The call is from Stanley Roth, an award-winning motion picture director and the head of Blue Zephyr Pictures. Roth is also married to actress Mary Margaret Flanders. Flanders is the love object of every American male possessed with a pulse, of which Antonelli is most certainly one. The reason for Roth's call to Antonelli is that Flanders has been found, brutally murdered, at the couple's palatial home and all of the evidence points to Roth as the doer of the deed. Roth anticipates being charged with her murder and retains Antonelli in anticipation of mounting his defense. Indeed, he is charged with murder --- and why not? Roth has motive and opportunity --- and there is circumstantial evidence that points directly at him. But as Antonelli discovers, there are others who not only have a motive for murdering Flanders but also for having Roth charged and convicted of the murder.The plot of STAR WITNESS alone makes it worth reading. And Antonelli is such a compelling, intriguing character that the reader can't help but want to know more about him, if not necessarily want to know him better. Buffa's style, his riveting prose, makes the experience of reading more like an event. There is a simultaneous timeliness and timelessness of atmosphere inherent in STAR WITNESS so that, in some ways, it reads as if it was written by a contemporary of Chandler, slumming in the same glittery postwar areas, while in others, it feels as if it were written five minutes ago. When readers pick up this book 30 years from now, they'll find it hard to believe that it was written during that long ago time known as the turn of the 20th century.This might well be the perfect mystery novel for so many reasons, not the least of which is the ending. Buffa does not, however, transcend the genre of "mystery" or, if you will, of the "courtroom thriller." What he does is demonstrate the potential of such classifications while simultaneously surpassing them. His characters engage in philosophical discourses that not only give the reader insight into the personalities involved, b