Review: Ron Liebman's "Death by Rodrigo"

Long ago in the spring of 1979, when I was the incoming book review editor for the Texas Law Review, the out-going book review editor told me a secret:

"Book publishers like to see their books reviewed in serious periodicals like ours," he said. "Sells more books. So if you write them a letter asking nicely, most times they'll send us a free 'review copy' of their new books! You can skim the book and see if you think it's worth reviewing. Sometimes, though, you can tell even before you get it that a book is going to be worth our reviewing, so you don't have to wait for the book. You can go ahead and start lining up a reviewer, and then forward the book as soon as you get it."

And thus I learned that part of my job was to scour the pages of magazines and newspapers that mentioned newly-released, or even soon anticipated, books about legal topics, to consider them as possible candidates for which we'd seek distinguished law professors to write book reviews for the Texas Law Review. The professors, of course, got to keep the books, but still: What a deal! Free books — and new ones, in hardback!

*******

Fast-forward twenty-seven years. I get a really polite email from a well-spoken publicist at Simon & Schuster, a serious publishing company on anyone's list of serious publishing companies, asking me if I'd like a review copy of Ron Liebman's new novel, Death by Rodrigo. "Sure," I write back. The book arrives in the mail a few days later with a nice hand-written note on embossed note-card stock from the publicist enclosed. Very classy. No visible strings.

And objectively, this is the kind of handsome book I might have bought out of my own pocket in an airport bookstore somewhere anyway, because I like books, and I like hardbacks, and I like books about courtroom lawyers — and from the jacket blurb raves, this particular one sounds like it will be pretty funny. And I'm not particularly offended by the jacket art. Hey, it's discreet; I've seen truck mudflaps that are much more raunchy. When I'm in airport bookstores, I don't look for books with silhouettes of strippers pole-dancing on inverted gavels, but that's no reason not to buy a book, is it?

I hit the internet before I open the book. Liebman, per his law firm's website and the looseleaf promo sheet also enclosed with the book, is a senior partner in the litigation section of a serious Washington law firm, Patton Boggs. Pretty interesting résumé, even discounting for the puffery inherent in all such online efforts: Among other things, he apparently had something to do as an AUSA prosecuting Spiro Agnew once upon a time, which must have been a hoot (while, of course, being very, very serious business). He clerked for a U.S. District Judge in Baltimore back in the day, which means he'd seen the soup-to-nuts practice even before he arrived inside the Beltway. That's intriguing. War-horse, not show-horse, stuff.

The promo sheet also says he "plays in a rock band," though. Oh. Really? They were smart to leave that off the book jacket.

Nineteen pages into the book, however — at the end of Chapter One — I just hated it. "Wow," I thought to myself, "I'd like to keep getting nice free books from Simon & Schuster, but not at the price of writing a puff-piece review on my blog that I don't really mean." It's funny enough, I'm thinking, but not quite as funny as I'd been led to believe by the jacket blurbs. It doesn't seem very novel, as novels go.

But then the book really surprised me, at the beginning of Chapter Two.

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*******

The punch that jolts you is the one you didn't see coming. That's true in the boxing ring, and it's true in fiction, including legal fiction. I'm not going to put any spoilers in this review, but I will tell you that on page 22, Liebman landed a solid left uppercut on me.

Anyone reviewing, or even just reading, this book will not be able to avoid drawing comparisons to HBO's The Sopranos. It's inevitable, because Liebman's protagonist is an Italian-heritage criminal defense lawyer who lives in New Jersey and whose nickname, for Pete's sake, is "Junne," like "Junior," like "Uncle Junior." And for other reasons. But don't assume that you'll be stuck on those comparisons as you work through this novel.

For one thing: Start with David Margulies, the fabulous character actor who played Neil Mink — (still wondering?) — who was Tony Soprano's regular lawyer (oh, him). Make him 20, but not 30, years younger. Then move your map over a few hundred yards culturally, but about 90 miles southwest geographically, from Newark to Camden, N.J., across the river from Philadelphia. Then move your law firm indicator down and diagonally two notches, to the kind of lawyer who's two full steps below Mink but still one step above the barely surviving public defender — to the kind of street-smart, public school criminal defense lawyer who subleases his office space, but who disdains indigent appointments, but who has to keep his continuing reputation among the city's non-mobbed pimps and drug-dealers constantly in mind. An ex-cop criminal defense lawyer who got his law degree from night school and had a really hard time passing the bar, but who has a line of metaphorical notches on his six-shooters from having slain "white-shoe" hotshot opponents in jury trials, and from whom the mighty and powerful may well find themselves well obliged to seek counsel when they need down-and-dirty legal representation. (Meaning, when they're guilty as sin.) The kind of lawyer from whom a basically honest jail guard might borrow $20 until the next payday when he really needs it, not in exchange for anything crooked, but just because they respect each other for working hard in crummy jobs, one of which pays a little better than the other.

Usually I read lawyer fiction in hopes of seeing some really brilliant courtroom riffs that I might steal, or at least profit from. That's not this book. The courtroom scenes are all from pretrial hearings, and while there are winners and losers, heroes and goats, those scenes can best be described as gritty and realistic, rather than glib or instructional.

On the other hand, I don't usually expect lawyer books to leave me rubbing my chin, wondering about the "human condition." Liebman's book is subtly provocative, ambiguous, and thereby ultimately lifelike. Oh, it does have some laugh-out-loud passages. But it's not a collection of war-stories, and it's not a romp.

*******

Bottom-line, it entertained me while I read it, but a day after finishing it, Death by Rodrigo has left me still thinking about it on both personal and professional levels. That's a surprise — a pleasant one, actually. I'll leave you to decide for yourself if my judgment has been compromised by getting it for free, or by the fact that I'll make some fractional portion of a dollar if you choose to order it in hardback from Amazon via the link above. But here's Beldar's thumb — pointed up.