Editorial Reviews:
For Butch Karp, chief assistant district attorney for New York County, the nightmare begins when a shocking act of negligence results in the death of a newborn. Goaded by the media and the public's scream for blood, Karp's boss, D.A. Jack Keegan, orders the prosecution of the baby's fifteen-year-old Hispanic mother. Butch's wife, Marlene Ciampi, is taking on an equally unspeakable tragedy following her recent return to law. With Butch and Marlene squaring off on opposite sides of an incendiary national debate, things couldn't get more tense...until an astonishing turn of events puts their daughter, Lucy, at the center of a horrifying crime. Drawn into a maelstrom of big-city politics and small-town values, Karp must struggle to salvage his self-respect, his career...even his life.
District Attorney Butch Karp and his pistol-packing wife Marlene Ciampi, the liveliest crime-fighting couple in New York, are back in True Justice. The first set of infanticides happen on Butch's watch: a wave of gruesome incidents in which newborns are killed or abandoned by their indigent teenage mothers. The second, Marlene's case, is straight out of the headlines: a middle-class college girl and her boyfriend are indicted for first-degree murder in the death of their baby after a concealed pregnancy. The most interesting story belongs to Lucy, Butch and Marlene's teenage daughter, an incisively brilliant and complex young woman who deserves her own novel. Lucy's best friend's parents seem to have been murdered by an African furniture restorer of whose guilt Lucy is unconvinced. The real solution to the mystery of who killed the Maxwells is telegraphed well in advance, but all the crimes give Butch, Marlene, their colleagues in criminal justice, and even Lucy a chance to weigh in on the law's fault lines and the ironies implicit in what passes for justice in America. But it's Lucy's spiritual quest that provokes the book's most unusual and involving drama. Lucy's devout Catholic faith, like her prodigious talent for language (she can speak 14, but give her five days in a foreign country and that'll be 15, thank you), is a mystery to Butch, a lapsed Jew, and Marlene, who has trouble squaring her own faith with the violence that attends her job. When a Jesuit priest tries to explain it in the following passage, Butch is nonplused: "Lucy takes her spiritual responsibilities very seriously. And of course, in the current age, when people think there's no such thing as spiritual responsibility, she has nothing to compare herself to, and so she may get herself painted into a corner." "I'm not sure I follow," said Karp. "Oh, I mean, two or three hundred years ago, a girl with her talents and predilections would have been in an order, with hourly guidance and a rule to follow. Think of Mickey Mantle being born in, say, Romania in 1830. The talent's there, but there's no cultural space for it." This is a keenly intelligent book, many cuts above the usual courtroom procedural. The most interesting things happen outside the courtroom--the moral dilemmas, the political choices, the bonds between parents and daughter. The pacing is as swift as the dialogue, the characters are piercingly illuminated, and the philosophical jousting is worth a room full of Jesuits. This reader is heading straight for Tanenbaum's backlist and eagerly anticipating another novel with Lucy as the star. --Jane Adams
Customer Reviews:
Displaying 1 to 5 of 40 total reviews (Page 1 of 9):
 Definitely a good book
I read a lot, varied authors, topics and genres. This is one of the better books I've read recently. This was my third Tanenbaum (I read "Hoax" and "Fury" first). I passed each along to my mother, but recommended this one first.
Overall, the storylines aren't bad, but the ever growing tensions in the Karp/Ciampi household got a little frustrating not too far into the book. I also wasn't impressed with the "twist" on who killed Lucy's friend's parents. Personally, I called it within two pages of reading about the murder. Perhaps it's because my mind won't fall to the obvious answer...if it's too obvious, it's probably not the right answer.
I have every intention of reading the rest of Tanenbaum's books. I generally like the style and flow of the storylines. I enjoyed this book, just a little disappointment with the conclusion to the murder.  This book gets a little better than Tannenbaums previous efforts, but it still is not great
I stopped reading the Butch Karp/Marlene Ciampi series for a while over a year ago. Primarily because this series started to loose its edge. Every book in the series made the characters goofier and goofier. Ciampi started to become Wonder Woman, Lucy, the daughter was a freak of nature, Butch cant loose a case, and the peripheral characters were straight out of Marvel Comics. So it was nice to pick up this book after a hiatus and see that Tannenbaum had played down all of his characters a bit. Gone were most of the peripheral folk, like the Vietnamese guy and the old cop. Their dog is pretty much just a dog, and Lucy is battling with herself, as is Marlene.
The story still is not as interesting or as page turning as they were at the beginning of the series. The characters are in a place that is too precious for Tannenbaum to be willing to do anything with. The trials are a little under whelming. For most of the novel, Tannenbaum wraps in the legal problem of young girls having babies and then killing them off. Is it no different than an abortion? Is it a capital offense?
I think it would be nice, though probably its too much to ask, for Tannenbaum to ply his one time magic on a new book where he doesn't have so much invested in the characters or back history. This was a fun book, but nothing more, and it really only barely stacks up with others of its ilk. If you liked this book, and this series more than I do, I would recommend Harlan Coben's Myron Bolitar series. It's about a sports agent and crimes he gets involved in.  Better Than Your Typical Grisham
This is the first Tanenbaum novel I've read, and except for the blurb on the back I would not have realised it was one of a series. That I never had the sense I was getting 12 volumes of backstory nor did I need it speaks highly for Tanenbaum's writing skills; whether his long time followers are as blissfully unaware I'm not at all sure. As to the story itself, Tanenbaum has taken a somewhat unconventional approach. Rather than lots of gunplay, powerful courtroom drama, or devious legal manueverings, we are given decent people struggling with what the role of the law is, and what it should be. The story is largely dialogue and character driven, with little action and only a minor mystery that appears quite late in the book. Mostly Tanenbaum waxes philosophical--an approach that will drive some readers mad, but I thought it was quite fresh and more like real life than any Grisham potboiler. I'm not sure I'd like an entire series with this approach--nor do I know that the author takes it in the other books of the series--but on its own merits, True Justice is definitely worth a read. Great listen!
This was one of the best audio books (unabridged, of course!) I have "read"....and I am addicted to books on tape. The reader, Nick Sullivan, did a wonderful job of "creating" the characters. I am sure that his expression and delivery truly enhanced the story, which was good. I really liked the little "legal sidebars" commentary of the author. And I wonder if it would have been a bit much to read without the benefit of his delivery. This was an excellent introduction to Tanenbaum's characters and story line. I will read more, and for sure, I will look for books read by Nick Sullivan. Really liked it
I really liked this book though the mysteries were more or less open and shut, it was how people thought of them, moralized through them. Lucy, the daughter comes off as a bit incredible, in her talents and religious convictions but it's a nice addition. The concept that a teenager is thinking deeply on the Universe was a welcome change. I would definitely keep my eyes open for another book about this family. More Customer Reviews:
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