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Summary
Summary
In Brooklyn's criminal courts, justice often depends on who has the better story to tell. That's what the criminal law is: it's how the day tries to correct the night's mistakes. Most of my cases, people have done something they never would've dreamed of doing in broad daylight. What does that make us? I said. The night's janitors? We're absolutely that, Myra said, sipping her cosmo. What else do we do but clean up after it? That's why we'll never run out of work. Not unless someone invents a cure for night. After a drug-related scandal ejects Joel Deveraux from his job at a white-shoe law firm, he slides down the corporate ladder to the Public Defenders' office in Brooklyn, where he defends the innocent and the guilty alike, a cog in the great clanking machine that is the New York City justice system. When his boss offers him the second chair to the savvy Myra Goldstein in a high-profile murder case, he eagerly takes it. The defendant is Lorenzo Tate, a black pot dealer from the projects who is charged with the murder of a white college student in a street shooting; and the tabloids have sunk their teeth into the racially tinged trial. In this twisty and overwhelmingly authentic journey through the real Brooklyn, Justin Peacock paints a portrait of the law as a form of combat where the best story wins--but who's telling the truth and who's lying are matters of interpretation. And of life and death. This compelling debut novel announces Justin Peacock as a writer who enters the territory of Richard Price and Scott Turow with a fresh new take on urban crime and punishment.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
A deeply flawed--and endearing--protagonist powers Peacock's impressive debut. Joel Deveraux, once an up-and-coming corporate litigator at one of New York City's most prestigious law firms, resigned in disgrace after a paralegal working on one of his cases died from a heroin overdose. Joel later tries to resurrect himself personally and professionally by becoming a public defender in Brooklyn. But when he's asked to help enigmatic lawyer Myra Goldstein with a high profile case involving the shooting death of a white college student gunned down in the projects, Joel is forced to revisit some of the same issues that almost ruined him years earlier. Peacock's intimate knowledge of the courtroom and carefully crafted prose aside, the gritty realism, intense emotional intimacy and socially relevant subject matter--racism, America's war on drugs, the corporate culture of drug dealers--make this a deeply thought-provoking read in a genre that can be anything but. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
After flaming out at a prestigious firm, a young lawyer does penance in the public-defenders office, learning quickly and sharply about the legal system of the streets in a fast-moving debut thriller. Joel Deveraux's smarts took him on an uninterrupted track from a modest family and educational background through Columbia Law to a white-shoe firm. Then his smooth upward glide was interrupted by a relationship with Beth, a young paralegal who turned him on to heroin, providing blissful escape from a mind-numbing billable life as an associate. Beth won the undeclared race to see who could crash and burn quicker, dying of an overdose in the ladies room and leaving Joel to limp away from the firm and sit out a six-month suspension of his license. He got away light. Beth's rich, vengeful father did his best to have the young lawyer disbarred for life. At the end of his suspension he goes to work for the public-defenders office at the bottom of the ladder, handling the arraignments of the bottom of New York's criminal food chain. His luck changes when his supervisor assigns him to work a murder case under smart, prickly Myra Goldstein. Joel, who's more likable than he thinks, scrambles to prove himself useful to Myra, who hadn't seen the need for any help, thank you. Their defendant is an amiable black drug dealer who seemingly had nothing to gain from shooting a guy who owed him money, accidentally doing in a white bystander in the area. But the wounded victim's girlfriend swears she saw him pull the trigger. Myra and Joel do the investigative work that the police neglected, discovering that the bystander was not so innocent, and that there was hanky-panky with the police work on the identification. The two lawyers build a case and a relationship, the case goes to trial and, with some hair-raising turns, justice reigns. Not groundbreaking, but plenty entertaining. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Forced to resign from his prestigious Manhattan law firm for drug use, Joel Deveraux becomes a public defender in Brooklyn, handling nothing more than arraignments for minor crimes. But after this dreary apprenticeship, Joel is assigned to assist PD Myra Goldstein in defending a young black man charged with the shooting death of a white college student. In racially volatile Brooklyn, the case is very high profile and far more meaningful than anything corporate law offered him. A Cure for Night is a truly compelling first novel. It successfully mixes several factors including a gritty, realistic, and thoughtful look at the criminal justice system; the moral and ethical crevasses of criminal law; and good storytelling into a taut delight. Joel, Myra, and a host of other characters are fully fleshed, a bit cynical but deeply human. Each character's voice is his or her own, and the author has a fine ear for dialogue. Peacock even throws in a surprise ending that startles in two very different ways. By any measure, this one's a winner.--Gaughan, Thomas Copyright 2008 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
In this novel, a scandal-tarred lawyer tries to redeem himself. JOEL DEVERAUX is a sad young lawyer. While taking a break from writing memos, he gets mixed up with the wrong paralegal. She's blond, waifish, connected. He never leaves the office. Together, they take heroin chic too far. There's a scandal, and when Joel is removed from his elite Manhattan law firm he seeks refuge in a gentler land across the river, where the rent is cheaper, the air is redolent with Elliott Smith songs and everyone gets a second chance: Brooklyn. Joel finds work in the public defender's office, helping the junior thugs in the city's drug trade avoid serious jail time. He keeps his head down and his nose clear, and soon gets the opportunity to assist on a tabloid murder case. It's a juicy one: white victim, black suspect and the requirement that he spend hours with the one hot lawyer in the office. Her name is Myra Goldstein. She's older, has "dark, unruly" hair and listens to Sleater-Kinney in her old Volvo. In the movie, she would be played by Catherine Keener. One guess who would play Joel. If you guessed Mark Ruffalo, go directly to Hollywood. When the two lawyers begin their investigation, the novel finds its stride. "A Cure for Night" is the first novel from Justin Peacock, a young lawyer turned writer. That's a fine tradition, and Peacock makes a discerning choice of mentor. He forgoes the flashier precincts of John Grisham, where all is conspiracy and the legalese is leavened with bombs and gunplay, and heads toward Scott Turow country, where characters get enmeshed in the murky, moral corners of the actual law. Peacock has Myra and Joel begin their case at Square 1, meeting their wary client, Lorenzo Tate, in a drab room on Rikers Island. "No disrespect to you all," he asks, "but do I need to be getting the money for a real lawyer?" Myra informs him that a real lawyer would cost around $50,000 for a case like his. And so the precision details begin, with Peacock guiding us through the mechanics of criminal law as it applies to America's underclass. Myra and Joel quickly dispense with the facts of the murder case. They don't need to determine if Tate is innocent - although it gnaws at them a little bit. Their job is to engage in a battle of storytelling, the defense versus the prosecution. Myra and Joel's search for an alternate story takes them to the projects, where Peacock drops his knowledge of the social and financial networks of the drug trade. (He seems familiar with the work of Sudhir Venkatesh, who studies the underground economy of the urban poor.) Some of these episodes are marred by painful Ebonics - let's declare a limit of one "true that" per scene in all future "street" dialogue - but they come off as real enough. Peacock is better at trial, where he shows the electricity of confrontation inside a courtroom. Away from the bench, "A Cure for Night" is fuzzier, like a slide that you can never really focus. Joel and Myra's personal lives are a little vague, while the restaurants they visit are extremely specific. (This book could double as a guide to nice places to go in Park Slope.) The downtime could have been graced more by Joel's lawyer friend Paul, with his jaded view of the billable life: "I do it for the money, and because I failed to come up with anything more interesting to do." But you're not hiring Justin Peacock to be Bret Easton Ellis or Richard Price. He's all about the law, and based on his work here, he's got a good chance to make partner. Michael Agger is a senior editor at Slate.
Library Journal Review
Boasting both a Yale law degree and a Columbia MFA, Peacock invades the legal thriller territory with the story of former white-shoe lawyer Joel Devereux, now stuck in Brooklyn's Public Defender's Office and caught up in a high-profile trial. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.