Author: Paul Batista 

ISBN: 1-978-1-4022-0665-8

Death’s Witness by Paul Batista is a strong addition to the popular legal thriller genre, more than capable of holding its own in the field. Batista writes courtroom drama the same way Michael Crichton used to write science: potentially dense subjects are distilled for the reader, the action borders on fantastic, and plot twists abound. The result is a very fun, very engaging, very quick, read.

The book opens with a murder: successful trail lawyer Tom Perini, a man seemingly without serious enemies, is gunned down in Central Park. Tom’s widow, Julie, struggles to deal with her grief, provide for her young daughter, and handle the rising pressure from increasingly hostile media members and FBI investigators. Julie sets out to learn what happened and soon learns to her dismay that Tom might not have been the law-abiding man she thought he was. Meanwhile, Tom’s death has thrown an already complicated criminal trial into further chaos. Julie’s world very quickly intertwines with Tom’s colleagues and clients, and the plot takes off from there. 
 
Batista makes excellent decisions about when to handle action inside the courtroom, and when to eschew the courtroom setting in favor of action in the “real” world. In 300 pages the action never bogs down, always moves, always resolves or adds a new complication.   
 
Batista’s characters have a distinctly human feel to them: there are judges furious with juries for ruining their vacation, lawyers planning on plea bargaining cases because their clients have run out of money, jurors with a fixed agenda... and these are more or less the good guys. One has to assume Batista, a real life trial lawyer, has drawn on his own experiences for a lot of this material.

The first time novelist does have a tendency to become omniscient, a trait that may irritate readers who are used to staying in one character’s head per scene. It would have been nice to see the novel’s alpha villain developed more. A poetry loving drug lord needs at least one scene in which to quote Shakespeare with unabashed malevolence, and “Death’s…” drug lord doesn’t really get any scenes. Perhaps this was a calculated decision to make him more shadowy, but it didn’t work for me. Of course, the advantage of reading a fast-paced novel is that by the time the reader realizes they didn’t like something, the plot has already moved on.

Batista’s book is first and foremost fun. If you’re looking for a quick read with lots of  twists, look no further than “Death’s Witness.”

The above review was contributed by:  Alex Bosworth: Aspiring Writer