Silent Counsel-Ken Isaacson

Silent Counsel
Ken Isaacson
Windermere Press, Sept 2007, $24.95, 332 pp.
ISBN 978097886224

Just having gotten the BMW, Vince Saldano is seeing how fast he can get from 0 to sixty miles per hour when he hears a thump and sees a child in the street motionless. Scared, he runs away from the scene of the accident; six year old Ben Altman is dead and Vince is having pangs of conscience. A man calls attorney Scott Heller and tells him about what he did and wants him to try and negotiate a good plea bargain with the prosecution without giving him his name. Scott researches it and realizes the name is privileged but the ADA won’t bargain without a name.

Scott invokes privilege when he talks to the police. The victim’s mother Stacy Altman a hires a lawyer and hopes that a judge will make Scott reveal the name of the hit and run driver. The judge upholds his position on privilege. Stacy is determined to find out who her son’s killer is and she starts stalking Scott’s wife and daughter. The ironic part of the whole affair is that his client gave him a phony name; his phone and pager are disconnected and his e-mail address is no longer valid. Stacy refuses to let go of her obsession and she does the one thing that will force Scott to try to find out who his client is in order to avert a tragedy.

It is hard to believe that this is Ken Isaacson’s first legal thriller as the tale is on a par with the works of John Grisham. This is a very action oriented legal thriller that starts off at light speed and just keeps accelerating. Yet the characters are so well developed especially Scott, his family, and Stacy readers will feel as if they know them as people they meet in their everyday lives. This book will make the audience feel a myriad of emotions.

Harriet Klausner