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The Plinko Bounce
For seventeen years, small-town public defender Andy Hughes has been underpaid to look after the poor, the addicted, and the unfortunate souls who constantly cycle through the courts, charged with petty crimes.
Then, in the summer of 2020, he’s assigned to a grotesque murder case that brings national media focus to rural Patrick County, Virginia—Alicia Benson, the wife of a wealthy businessman, is murdered in her home. The accused killer, Damian Bullins, is a cunning felon with a long history of violence, and he confesses to the police. He even admits his guilt to Andy. But a simple typographical error and a shocking discovery begin to complicate the state’s case, making it possible Bullins might escape punishment.
Duty-bound to give his client a thorough defense, Andy—despite his misgivings—agrees to fight for a not-guilty verdict, a decision that will ultimately force him to make profound, life-and-death choices, both inside and outside the courtroom.
With its unforgettable characters, insider’s blueprint of the justice system, intricate plotting, and provocative, no-holds-barred ending, The Plinko Bounce demonstrates once again why Martin Clark has been called “the thinking man’s John Grisham” by The New York Times and praised as “hands down, our finest legal-thriller writer” by Entertainment Weekly .
Then, in the summer of 2020, he’s assigned to a grotesque murder case that brings national media focus to rural Patrick County, Virginia—Alicia Benson, the wife of a wealthy businessman, is murdered in her home. The accused killer, Damian Bullins, is a cunning felon with a long history of violence, and he confesses to the police. He even admits his guilt to Andy. But a simple typographical error and a shocking discovery begin to complicate the state’s case, making it possible Bullins might escape punishment.
Duty-bound to give his client a thorough defense, Andy—despite his misgivings—agrees to fight for a not-guilty verdict, a decision that will ultimately force him to make profound, life-and-death choices, both inside and outside the courtroom.
With its unforgettable characters, insider’s blueprint of the justice system, intricate plotting, and provocative, no-holds-barred ending, The Plinko Bounce demonstrates once again why Martin Clark has been called “the thinking man’s John Grisham” by The New York Times and praised as “hands down, our finest legal-thriller writer” by Entertainment Weekly .
356 pages, Hardcover
First published September 12, 2023
319 people are currently reading
9421 people want to read
About the author
Martin Clark
6 books552 followersEntertainment Weekly called Martin Clark “hands down, our finest legal-thriller writer.” The New York Times stated that he is “the thinking man’s John Grisham.” The Winston-Salem Journal declared that he has set “the new standard by which other works of legal fiction should be judged,” and David Baldacci praised him as “a truly original writer.” A retired circuit court judge from Patrick County, Virginia, Martin is a cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Davidson College and attended law school at the University of Virginia. When he was appointed to the bench in 1992 at age thirty-two, he became one of the youngest judges in the history of the commonwealth. His novels have appeared on numerous bestseller lists, and the audio version of The Substitution Order was a number one national bestseller. Additionally, his novels have been chosen as a New York Times Notable Book, a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a Washington Post Book World Best Book of the Year, a Bookmarks Magazine Best Book of the Year, a Boston Globe Best Book of the Year, a Book-of-the-Month Club selection, a finalist for the Stephen Crane First Fiction Award, and the winner of the Library of Virginia’s People’s Choice Award in 2009, 2016 and 2020. Martin received the Patrick County Outstanding Community Service Award in 2016 and the Virginia State Bar’s Harry L. Carrico Professionalism Award in 2018. His wife, Deana, is a photographer, and they live on a farm with dogs, cats, chickens, guinea fowl and three donkeys.
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September 26, 2024
A marvelous legal thriller about chaos and ethics.
"The Plinko Bounce" by Martin Clark is a marvelous legal thriller about what can go wrong when the right thing is done for a not-so-right person.
On the surface, the plot of "The Plinko Bounce" is simple: a skilled and ethical lawyer defends a bad client, and an almost predictable verdict is reached. But, of course, nothing is ever simple when liars are involved. And when someone good gets pushed into helping a selfish criminal, dilemmas sprout like summer weeds on a compost pile. In "The Plinko Bounce," what concludes in court is not the end of the story.
Andy, the defense attorney at the novel's center, enjoys woodworking, raising his son, caring for a rescued dog, and strives to live an ethical life. So much so that when he and his young son, on a visit to Montana, bond by putting a love-lock onto a bridge, Andy pockets the lock's key and surreptitiously tosses a pebble into the river below rather than to even slightly litter. So, when Andy must defend a drug and alcohol-befuddled career criminal accused of murder, procedural legal mistakes -- and worse -- become tarnished keys that Andy has a difficult time using. The story, combined with clear and direct writing, leads to a great book that will be on my shelf for many years.
About midway into "The Plinko Bounce" the title is explained. It's a guessing game where the only for-sure outcome is a plinking, chaotic downward path. In this wonderfully engaging novel, the intertwined stories of interesting characters -- some despicable, others refreshingly ordinary -- wrap and twist towards a satisfying bit of tarnished, hidden karma. The Plinko Bounce is a solid 5-star read.
- Steve S. Saroff, author of "Paper Targets"
"The Plinko Bounce" by Martin Clark is a marvelous legal thriller about what can go wrong when the right thing is done for a not-so-right person.
On the surface, the plot of "The Plinko Bounce" is simple: a skilled and ethical lawyer defends a bad client, and an almost predictable verdict is reached. But, of course, nothing is ever simple when liars are involved. And when someone good gets pushed into helping a selfish criminal, dilemmas sprout like summer weeds on a compost pile. In "The Plinko Bounce," what concludes in court is not the end of the story.
Andy, the defense attorney at the novel's center, enjoys woodworking, raising his son, caring for a rescued dog, and strives to live an ethical life. So much so that when he and his young son, on a visit to Montana, bond by putting a love-lock onto a bridge, Andy pockets the lock's key and surreptitiously tosses a pebble into the river below rather than to even slightly litter. So, when Andy must defend a drug and alcohol-befuddled career criminal accused of murder, procedural legal mistakes -- and worse -- become tarnished keys that Andy has a difficult time using. The story, combined with clear and direct writing, leads to a great book that will be on my shelf for many years.
About midway into "The Plinko Bounce" the title is explained. It's a guessing game where the only for-sure outcome is a plinking, chaotic downward path. In this wonderfully engaging novel, the intertwined stories of interesting characters -- some despicable, others refreshingly ordinary -- wrap and twist towards a satisfying bit of tarnished, hidden karma. The Plinko Bounce is a solid 5-star read.
- Steve S. Saroff, author of "Paper Targets"
February 16, 2024
Andy Hughes Is A Good Man. How do we know he is good? First of all, the book tells us so. Constantly. Everyone Andy ever meets must in every conversation with him say that he is a good man, that he made good choices, that he is ethical, that he is smart, that he is a good lawyer. It sure must be nice being Andy Hughes and getting all this constant praise. Secondly, he has all the pieces of Good Man according to a certain generation. He is a caring father to his son, he adopts a lonely dog, he falls in love with a good woman, he is a skilled carpenter and handyman. He has all the Good Man trappings. He is not so much a character as a certain kind of Goodness personified, walking around in this book.
The story we have here is how this Very Good Man ends up representing a Very Bad One. Just as Andy is Good, his client Damien is Bad. Damien's only good quality is that he is smart, though we are told he has squandered his potential. Damien has to be smart so that he can be a constant thorn in Andy's side. Everything Damien ever says is mean and cruel. Everything Damien has ever done is reckless, dangerous, and brutal. Damien only cares about himself, he is regularly referred to as a sociopath, he is violent for no reason besides "drugs". Damien is so Bad that it strains credulity in the same way Andy's Goodness does.
In the battle between good and evil that this novel sets up, the thing that really matters is the titular plinko bounce, that Damien somehow has the best luck that has ever existed and what looks like an unwinnable case on a murder charge suddenly becomes a very winnable one. Even though he is guilty.
Besides its cardboard cutout characters (Damien is Bad, one character is A Politician Who Cannot Be Trusted, and everyone else is Good) this is a book that clearly has a moral point of view. Morality in fiction is something I think about a lot, especially in crime novels. Crime novels generally have nothing to do with real crime, they ignore the real criminal justice system where almost everyone who is arrested and imprisoned is poor and usually not white. Instead we have novels where cops are noble and criminals are rich and powerful and the system suddenly becomes this just thing instead of the deeply unjust thing it really is. But every now and then you get a book that wants to be about a more accurate version of the system. This book thinks that is what it is, that it is about the one in a million case. But it isn't. It thinks it is about a Good Man in an impossible situation. It's not.
Because Andy Hughes is not a Good Man. He may be technically good in court, but I also wouldn't call him a Good Lawyer. Andy is simply here to address the age old question every defense attorney gets: what happens when you have to defend a guilty client? Clark's answer is this book. Clark's answer is not the answer most good defense attorneys would give you.
The real answer to this question (yes, I did actually have this job for several years so I am not just making this up) is that most of your clients are guilty. The real answer is that most of your clients will plead guilty whether they are guilty or not because battling the system is an almost impossible thing to do even with a perfect public defender because the system may say it is innocent until proven guilty but that is not how it actually works. The real answer is that when you work in this system and see how almost all of your clients are unable to escape the poverty that led to their charges in the first place in the neverending cycle of incarceration and policing, you do not spend a whole lot of time worrying about a guilty client who might end up not being convicted. It is very rare. And when it does happen it is almost always because the system messed up, because you were able to hold police and prosecutors accountable for their actions, and demand that they follow the law. Most defense attorneys spend very little time worrying about this. And the ones who really should worry about it are the highly paid private attorneys who represent white collar criminals, not the public defenders. (When Andy gets an opportunity to move into that kind of work he has no qualms and the book sees it as an excellent turn of events.) That is all the real world.
This book is not set in the real world. (It is set in the real Patrick County, Virginia. Which, coincidentally, is very close to Mount Airy, NC, the home of Andy Griffith, which brands itself as Mayberry. It's fitting.) In this book, Andy our Very Good Man, has been a public defender for 17 years or so. It is unclear why Andy has this job. We never hear why, just what a good lawyer he is. Career public defenders come in two general varieties: the passionate ones and the ones who don't care. Andy doesn't seem to be either. He has no passion for defending the indigent. We see him interact with two clients (including the Very Bad Damien) and he clearly loathes them both. Does this happen? Sure. Every PD has clients they dislike, clients who are always trouble, but this is all we ever see Andy do and as far as we know it is the only kind of client Andy ever has. Andy definitely isn't one of the Doesn't Care because, well, he is Good. And if you are Good you have to care.
In this fantasy world, Andy (justifiably) hates his clients but is very friendly with the cops and prosecutors he's worked with for the last 17 years. They are all pals. They all tell Andy how good of a person he is. There is one bad apple, but Andy quickly identifies him, the sheriff's office swiftly disavows him, and everyone congratulates Andy on returning the system to its pure state once again. There are places, and it's particularly common in rural areas, where all these people are pals. Where a PD would be more loyal to the cops and prosecutors than to his clients. But that is not Good Lawyering. That is very very bad lawyering.
I was so constantly baffled by this book. Clark was a longtime judge, and he gets the procedure right. And it's clear he finds this story interesting because it's so heightened, because it is a Very Bad Man who gets every lucky break. But Clark presents this to us without much context, where this case is all we really have to go on, and where every character must constantly moralize to us about what is right and wrong in these situations. They, like the novel, are fixated on this one crazy case which seems to shake everyone to their core as if it Means Something. To make sure we really hate Damien, this murder is committed for no reason at all and the victim is of course a perfect saint, a mother of 4. (Although if Damien is as terrible as they say with as long a record as we're always told he has, it's unclear why he wouldn't already be on probation/parole and this would all be a violation that would have him locked up for a whole long time making the murder case itself rather inconsequential.)
This book acts like it is about the real world and the real troubles in it, but it's all confusing and inconsistent. Like how everyone tells Andy he is the best lawyer ever especially for a public defender, implying that of course all public defenders are not good lawyers, but simultaneously presenting us with several other public defenders who are also good lawyers. Why is Andy so special? Why is there a rich Mormon living in rural Virginia? Why does no one ever plead guilty in this PD's office? Try to bring the real world and this novel will thwart it at every turn. It just wants to live in this perfect little world with these very specific morals.
All of this builds to an ending that is absolutely not earned and arguably goes against Clark's entire setup and moral compass. Where Andy feels some personal need to take control of the situation. As if a 17 year public defender hasn't spent his entire career seeing the system not work, seeing justice not served, seeing lives ruined. But now, well, some rich little girls may find out their dad cheated on their mom, a horror that the book seems to treat as worse than the murder of that mom. Even if you love this book you will possibly hate the ending.
This book, I think, was made in a lab specifically for me to hate it. I know enough about what it is about to know all the ways it's wrong. On top of all the criminal justice stuff, it also somehow decides to throw Mormonism into the mix (I'm not only a former PD but I grew up Mormon) which is awfully weird as Mormons are pretty rare in the rural Southeast. But eventually I figured it out. It has to have a rich Mormon because that way it can most easily evoke Southern prejudices without hitting any messy racial discrimination. (Only Bad Damien is racist, everyone else is not.) Andy, in a Bad Lawyer moment, encourages this prejudice by leaning into factually untrue beliefs about the church, and then is so horrified by everyone taking those insinuations and running them into full blown conspiracy theories. How could this have happened when he was such a Good Lawyer, what a shame.
I could write all day about how much this book bothered me. I could create an annotated edition. I have really just scratched the surface here and have probably gotten so ramped up that my arguments are more rambling screed than concise, helpful review. But it is truly rare that I read a book that I find so weirdly morally awful when it is so convinced it is morally good. When it on its face should align with my own principles. I will acknowledge that while set in 2020, the one thing I appreciated was that it is pretty specific about characters distancing and masking, which so many stories of the pandemic leave out entirely. But this was truly the only thing the entire book that I did not hate with a deep and growing passion.
I did this book on audio. It made the unusual choice of having a second female reader do all the women's dialogue. I can't decide if I like this or not. It is better, I admit, than having a male reader do a terrible job of women's voices. But when he does conversations between two male characters he is just fine at differentiating them. (Relies too heavily on accents, but still.) Can't we just have readers do better at working across genders? Is it too much to ask?
The story we have here is how this Very Good Man ends up representing a Very Bad One. Just as Andy is Good, his client Damien is Bad. Damien's only good quality is that he is smart, though we are told he has squandered his potential. Damien has to be smart so that he can be a constant thorn in Andy's side. Everything Damien ever says is mean and cruel. Everything Damien has ever done is reckless, dangerous, and brutal. Damien only cares about himself, he is regularly referred to as a sociopath, he is violent for no reason besides "drugs". Damien is so Bad that it strains credulity in the same way Andy's Goodness does.
In the battle between good and evil that this novel sets up, the thing that really matters is the titular plinko bounce, that Damien somehow has the best luck that has ever existed and what looks like an unwinnable case on a murder charge suddenly becomes a very winnable one. Even though he is guilty.
Besides its cardboard cutout characters (Damien is Bad, one character is A Politician Who Cannot Be Trusted, and everyone else is Good) this is a book that clearly has a moral point of view. Morality in fiction is something I think about a lot, especially in crime novels. Crime novels generally have nothing to do with real crime, they ignore the real criminal justice system where almost everyone who is arrested and imprisoned is poor and usually not white. Instead we have novels where cops are noble and criminals are rich and powerful and the system suddenly becomes this just thing instead of the deeply unjust thing it really is. But every now and then you get a book that wants to be about a more accurate version of the system. This book thinks that is what it is, that it is about the one in a million case. But it isn't. It thinks it is about a Good Man in an impossible situation. It's not.
Because Andy Hughes is not a Good Man. He may be technically good in court, but I also wouldn't call him a Good Lawyer. Andy is simply here to address the age old question every defense attorney gets: what happens when you have to defend a guilty client? Clark's answer is this book. Clark's answer is not the answer most good defense attorneys would give you.
The real answer to this question (yes, I did actually have this job for several years so I am not just making this up) is that most of your clients are guilty. The real answer is that most of your clients will plead guilty whether they are guilty or not because battling the system is an almost impossible thing to do even with a perfect public defender because the system may say it is innocent until proven guilty but that is not how it actually works. The real answer is that when you work in this system and see how almost all of your clients are unable to escape the poverty that led to their charges in the first place in the neverending cycle of incarceration and policing, you do not spend a whole lot of time worrying about a guilty client who might end up not being convicted. It is very rare. And when it does happen it is almost always because the system messed up, because you were able to hold police and prosecutors accountable for their actions, and demand that they follow the law. Most defense attorneys spend very little time worrying about this. And the ones who really should worry about it are the highly paid private attorneys who represent white collar criminals, not the public defenders. (When Andy gets an opportunity to move into that kind of work he has no qualms and the book sees it as an excellent turn of events.) That is all the real world.
This book is not set in the real world. (It is set in the real Patrick County, Virginia. Which, coincidentally, is very close to Mount Airy, NC, the home of Andy Griffith, which brands itself as Mayberry. It's fitting.) In this book, Andy our Very Good Man, has been a public defender for 17 years or so. It is unclear why Andy has this job. We never hear why, just what a good lawyer he is. Career public defenders come in two general varieties: the passionate ones and the ones who don't care. Andy doesn't seem to be either. He has no passion for defending the indigent. We see him interact with two clients (including the Very Bad Damien) and he clearly loathes them both. Does this happen? Sure. Every PD has clients they dislike, clients who are always trouble, but this is all we ever see Andy do and as far as we know it is the only kind of client Andy ever has. Andy definitely isn't one of the Doesn't Care because, well, he is Good. And if you are Good you have to care.
In this fantasy world, Andy (justifiably) hates his clients but is very friendly with the cops and prosecutors he's worked with for the last 17 years. They are all pals. They all tell Andy how good of a person he is. There is one bad apple, but Andy quickly identifies him, the sheriff's office swiftly disavows him, and everyone congratulates Andy on returning the system to its pure state once again. There are places, and it's particularly common in rural areas, where all these people are pals. Where a PD would be more loyal to the cops and prosecutors than to his clients. But that is not Good Lawyering. That is very very bad lawyering.
I was so constantly baffled by this book. Clark was a longtime judge, and he gets the procedure right. And it's clear he finds this story interesting because it's so heightened, because it is a Very Bad Man who gets every lucky break. But Clark presents this to us without much context, where this case is all we really have to go on, and where every character must constantly moralize to us about what is right and wrong in these situations. They, like the novel, are fixated on this one crazy case which seems to shake everyone to their core as if it Means Something. To make sure we really hate Damien, this murder is committed for no reason at all and the victim is of course a perfect saint, a mother of 4. (Although if Damien is as terrible as they say with as long a record as we're always told he has, it's unclear why he wouldn't already be on probation/parole and this would all be a violation that would have him locked up for a whole long time making the murder case itself rather inconsequential.)
This book acts like it is about the real world and the real troubles in it, but it's all confusing and inconsistent. Like how everyone tells Andy he is the best lawyer ever especially for a public defender, implying that of course all public defenders are not good lawyers, but simultaneously presenting us with several other public defenders who are also good lawyers. Why is Andy so special? Why is there a rich Mormon living in rural Virginia? Why does no one ever plead guilty in this PD's office? Try to bring the real world and this novel will thwart it at every turn. It just wants to live in this perfect little world with these very specific morals.
All of this builds to an ending that is absolutely not earned and arguably goes against Clark's entire setup and moral compass. Where Andy feels some personal need to take control of the situation. As if a 17 year public defender hasn't spent his entire career seeing the system not work, seeing justice not served, seeing lives ruined. But now, well, some rich little girls may find out their dad cheated on their mom, a horror that the book seems to treat as worse than the murder of that mom. Even if you love this book you will possibly hate the ending.
This book, I think, was made in a lab specifically for me to hate it. I know enough about what it is about to know all the ways it's wrong. On top of all the criminal justice stuff, it also somehow decides to throw Mormonism into the mix (I'm not only a former PD but I grew up Mormon) which is awfully weird as Mormons are pretty rare in the rural Southeast. But eventually I figured it out. It has to have a rich Mormon because that way it can most easily evoke Southern prejudices without hitting any messy racial discrimination. (Only Bad Damien is racist, everyone else is not.) Andy, in a Bad Lawyer moment, encourages this prejudice by leaning into factually untrue beliefs about the church, and then is so horrified by everyone taking those insinuations and running them into full blown conspiracy theories. How could this have happened when he was such a Good Lawyer, what a shame.
I could write all day about how much this book bothered me. I could create an annotated edition. I have really just scratched the surface here and have probably gotten so ramped up that my arguments are more rambling screed than concise, helpful review. But it is truly rare that I read a book that I find so weirdly morally awful when it is so convinced it is morally good. When it on its face should align with my own principles. I will acknowledge that while set in 2020, the one thing I appreciated was that it is pretty specific about characters distancing and masking, which so many stories of the pandemic leave out entirely. But this was truly the only thing the entire book that I did not hate with a deep and growing passion.
I did this book on audio. It made the unusual choice of having a second female reader do all the women's dialogue. I can't decide if I like this or not. It is better, I admit, than having a male reader do a terrible job of women's voices. But when he does conversations between two male characters he is just fine at differentiating them. (Relies too heavily on accents, but still.) Can't we just have readers do better at working across genders? Is it too much to ask?
March 8, 2024
“Better ten guilty men go free than one innocent man be convicted.”
William Blackstone
Your enjoyment of The Plinko Bounce will totally depend on what you’re looking for. If it’s lots of action, look elsewhere. This is a legal thriller, although the word “thriller” is a bit of a misnomer. If you’re more interested in moral dilemmas, the exact rules of law, legal actions, and time spent in the courtroom, you’ll enjoy it.
Andy Hughes is a small town public defender. Just as he makes the decision to leave the job, he takes on a murder case. His client has admitted his guilt - to both the police and Andy. But a technical screw up now means the case isn’t a slam dunk.
Clark has created a likable character in Andy. He’s a good dad, a good lawyer. And he’s just rescued a dog off the streets after his homeless owner dies. But now, he’s being asked to provide a strong defense to a man he knows is guilty. I guess it’s the quandary all defense lawyers handling homicide cases face at one time or another. And, of course, this being a “thriller” there are twists. The defendant is a totally despicable person. TW - a dog is harmed.
I would recommend this for fans of John Lescroat.
I listened to this and David Aaron Baker and Morgan Hallett did fine jobs.
William Blackstone
Your enjoyment of The Plinko Bounce will totally depend on what you’re looking for. If it’s lots of action, look elsewhere. This is a legal thriller, although the word “thriller” is a bit of a misnomer. If you’re more interested in moral dilemmas, the exact rules of law, legal actions, and time spent in the courtroom, you’ll enjoy it.
Andy Hughes is a small town public defender. Just as he makes the decision to leave the job, he takes on a murder case. His client has admitted his guilt - to both the police and Andy. But a technical screw up now means the case isn’t a slam dunk.
Clark has created a likable character in Andy. He’s a good dad, a good lawyer. And he’s just rescued a dog off the streets after his homeless owner dies. But now, he’s being asked to provide a strong defense to a man he knows is guilty. I guess it’s the quandary all defense lawyers handling homicide cases face at one time or another. And, of course, this being a “thriller” there are twists. The defendant is a totally despicable person. TW - a dog is harmed.
I would recommend this for fans of John Lescroat.
I listened to this and David Aaron Baker and Morgan Hallett did fine jobs.
October 19, 2023
5 Stars
November 15, 2023
Ridiculous unbelievable ending given the level of righteousness the lead character shows throughout the book. Enjoyed the book up until the last 30 pages.
May 18, 2024
Please don’t read this if you’re a public defender or you know one. The book itself is well written, and the characters are well developed, but the plot is so frustrating. As an attorney and former public defender usually my issue with legal thrillers is their inaccuracy and implausibility in respect to the legal proceedings, but here I find this to be wildly inaccurate in its portrayal of PDs, why we do the job, what the challenges are, and our ethics/ethical obligations. There are some mild and then major spoilers in this review.
First some minor spoilers:
My overall issue with this book is it’s as though the author is attempting to rehabilitate PDs as a whole by providing sort of a “sure they represent ‘criminals’ but look at the other ways they’re such good people” and the problem with that is first that PDs shouldn’t be viewed as needing their reputations rehabilitated at all, but more specifically what this book declares is ethically sound is to me quite the opposite.
Without looking it up I could tell that a PD didn’t write this because throughout the book the narrator says a bunch of disparaging stuff about his clients. He notes that he’s tired of the racism in the system but has zero sympathy or patience for addiction and regularly refers to his clients as “the kind of people who would commit crimes” which is just antithetical to being a PD or working around folks accused of crimes. I suspect most of us know before going in but you certainly learn quickly that there’s no such thing as “good” & “bad” people. The whole idea of someone being a “criminal” is a thing I’ve never met a PD who believes in. It’s a moniker used by DAs, politicians, judges, and the media, not PDs. PDs first and foremost do what they do bc they are capable of humanizing everyone. If you’re doing your job it’s not that I’m saying you feel all of your clients are perfect, you just know they aren’t any different than people who aren’t your clients. Criminal defendants are just people, no more and no less “good” or “bad” than anyone else. The only thing they are more likely to be is poor and brown or black. I’m inclined to think more of them are addicts, but I’m not inclined to think more of them are using drugs or alcohol because that’s just everyone everywhere. So few crimes are committed with no context or reason. So few people are the kind of vicious serial killers we love to obsess over in movies and true crime podcasts that I suspect most PDs won’t ever even have a single client who falls into this category. But this guy acts like that all just in a day’s work to encounter psychopaths and irredeemable souls.
Even when he’s talking about super minor inconsequential crimes he tends to paint it as though there’s no context. For instance he offhandedly comments about another attorneys representation of a seven time shoplifter and even though what she stole amounted to well under $100 the protagonist complains that she’s not paying attention to “the testimony or attorneys questions“ during a proceeding. He glides right by the fact that this person has been in custody, unable to make bail for this felony (which is weird I’ve never even heard of a shoplifting felony) without so much of a mention of how ridiculous it is to hold somebody pretrial on something as inconsequential as shoplifting. And there’s so many off hand moments like this where the author just misses entirely what an actual PDs thinking would be.
And what abt public defender would he thinking is more focused on the cycle created by over criminalization and mass incarceration whereby minor crimes can lead to a lifetime of incarceration because the system is essentially rigged to prevent people from getting out of it. The protagonist is more inclined to draw attention to one’s constitutional right to defense as his reason for having done his job for 17 years (which is a seriously long time btw), and certainly that’s a consideration, but in my experience people become public defenders because they want to help the humans stuck in this system not because they’re trying to uphold the constitution. The latter is just an added benefit.
MAJOR SPOILERS
BIG SPOILERS FOR REAL
…
In fact there are several times that the protagonist acts unethically if not illegally in this book. And that happens in legal thrillers, I get that. But if you are trying to make PDs look good, and specifically this attorney, this is not in my opinion the way to do it. The main plot however involves a PD essentially setting his client up by not adequately explaining attorney client privilege to him, and then later killing that client. There’s obviously no question that the latter is just straight up murder, illegal, and criminal, and it makes the protagonist just as bad as the antagonist. But even the former, revealing communications he had with his client I think is arguably illegal too regardless of how hard the book fights to make it seem not only legal but the morally and professionally “right” thing to do. It seems to me that Andy had in mind the entire time that he was going to find a way to screw his client even if he appeared to publicly provide him a good defense. And the fact that he thought this before basically leading his client in to revealing information in a situation that could break privilege felt premeditated to me. If that’s the case, I think it’s illegal.
Even if it wasn’t, and even if this was the extent of his involvement with the client, it at the very least makes him a shitty lawyer and one who should never have stayed in a job he hated for 17 years to the detriment of his clients. The antagonist may be a terrible human, or guilty of the crimes he’s accused of, but like our parents always said “two wrongs don’t make a right.”
I’m still giving this 2 stars because it was well written, and if you still decide to go for it, at least avoid the audiobook which I listened to some of-I was super uncomfortable with the choices the narrator made about how to voice some characters.
First some minor spoilers:
My overall issue with this book is it’s as though the author is attempting to rehabilitate PDs as a whole by providing sort of a “sure they represent ‘criminals’ but look at the other ways they’re such good people” and the problem with that is first that PDs shouldn’t be viewed as needing their reputations rehabilitated at all, but more specifically what this book declares is ethically sound is to me quite the opposite.
Without looking it up I could tell that a PD didn’t write this because throughout the book the narrator says a bunch of disparaging stuff about his clients. He notes that he’s tired of the racism in the system but has zero sympathy or patience for addiction and regularly refers to his clients as “the kind of people who would commit crimes” which is just antithetical to being a PD or working around folks accused of crimes. I suspect most of us know before going in but you certainly learn quickly that there’s no such thing as “good” & “bad” people. The whole idea of someone being a “criminal” is a thing I’ve never met a PD who believes in. It’s a moniker used by DAs, politicians, judges, and the media, not PDs. PDs first and foremost do what they do bc they are capable of humanizing everyone. If you’re doing your job it’s not that I’m saying you feel all of your clients are perfect, you just know they aren’t any different than people who aren’t your clients. Criminal defendants are just people, no more and no less “good” or “bad” than anyone else. The only thing they are more likely to be is poor and brown or black. I’m inclined to think more of them are addicts, but I’m not inclined to think more of them are using drugs or alcohol because that’s just everyone everywhere. So few crimes are committed with no context or reason. So few people are the kind of vicious serial killers we love to obsess over in movies and true crime podcasts that I suspect most PDs won’t ever even have a single client who falls into this category. But this guy acts like that all just in a day’s work to encounter psychopaths and irredeemable souls.
Even when he’s talking about super minor inconsequential crimes he tends to paint it as though there’s no context. For instance he offhandedly comments about another attorneys representation of a seven time shoplifter and even though what she stole amounted to well under $100 the protagonist complains that she’s not paying attention to “the testimony or attorneys questions“ during a proceeding. He glides right by the fact that this person has been in custody, unable to make bail for this felony (which is weird I’ve never even heard of a shoplifting felony) without so much of a mention of how ridiculous it is to hold somebody pretrial on something as inconsequential as shoplifting. And there’s so many off hand moments like this where the author just misses entirely what an actual PDs thinking would be.
And what abt public defender would he thinking is more focused on the cycle created by over criminalization and mass incarceration whereby minor crimes can lead to a lifetime of incarceration because the system is essentially rigged to prevent people from getting out of it. The protagonist is more inclined to draw attention to one’s constitutional right to defense as his reason for having done his job for 17 years (which is a seriously long time btw), and certainly that’s a consideration, but in my experience people become public defenders because they want to help the humans stuck in this system not because they’re trying to uphold the constitution. The latter is just an added benefit.
MAJOR SPOILERS
BIG SPOILERS FOR REAL
…
In fact there are several times that the protagonist acts unethically if not illegally in this book. And that happens in legal thrillers, I get that. But if you are trying to make PDs look good, and specifically this attorney, this is not in my opinion the way to do it. The main plot however involves a PD essentially setting his client up by not adequately explaining attorney client privilege to him, and then later killing that client. There’s obviously no question that the latter is just straight up murder, illegal, and criminal, and it makes the protagonist just as bad as the antagonist. But even the former, revealing communications he had with his client I think is arguably illegal too regardless of how hard the book fights to make it seem not only legal but the morally and professionally “right” thing to do. It seems to me that Andy had in mind the entire time that he was going to find a way to screw his client even if he appeared to publicly provide him a good defense. And the fact that he thought this before basically leading his client in to revealing information in a situation that could break privilege felt premeditated to me. If that’s the case, I think it’s illegal.
Even if it wasn’t, and even if this was the extent of his involvement with the client, it at the very least makes him a shitty lawyer and one who should never have stayed in a job he hated for 17 years to the detriment of his clients. The antagonist may be a terrible human, or guilty of the crimes he’s accused of, but like our parents always said “two wrongs don’t make a right.”
I’m still giving this 2 stars because it was well written, and if you still decide to go for it, at least avoid the audiobook which I listened to some of-I was super uncomfortable with the choices the narrator made about how to voice some characters.
December 4, 2023
If you want to know how a book can go from a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ read to a ⭐️ ⭐️ star by its final act, this is as good a place to start as any.
Andy Hughes is a small-town public defender, a very salt-of-the-earth kind of guy who knows his job is to defend the guilty, even if he’s 100% certain the defendant is a murderer - as is the case here.
The first half of the book is a perfectly good courtroom procedural. Everyone is so gosh darned nice: the judge, the prosecution, the defense, heck even Andy’s ex-wife.
Everyone except the felon Andy’s defending. Naturally, Andy is conflicted about the technicalities he exploits to get his client acquitted. Battle-weary he may be, but he’s also a duty-bound, Matlock type.
Which is why the second half of this book is just bananas. There is no conceivable way a person this by-the-book would do what the twist has him do. No one turns on a dime that radically simply because his dog is shot. Well, maybe John Wick. But even in Wick’s case, the transformation doesn’t come so ridiculously out of the blue.
The NYT has called the author Martin Clark “the thinking man’s John Grisham.” What was he *thinking*?
Andy Hughes is a small-town public defender, a very salt-of-the-earth kind of guy who knows his job is to defend the guilty, even if he’s 100% certain the defendant is a murderer - as is the case here.
The first half of the book is a perfectly good courtroom procedural. Everyone is so gosh darned nice: the judge, the prosecution, the defense, heck even Andy’s ex-wife.
Everyone except the felon Andy’s defending. Naturally, Andy is conflicted about the technicalities he exploits to get his client acquitted. Battle-weary he may be, but he’s also a duty-bound, Matlock type.
Which is why the second half of this book is just bananas. There is no conceivable way a person this by-the-book would do what the twist has him do. No one turns on a dime that radically simply because his dog is shot. Well, maybe John Wick. But even in Wick’s case, the transformation doesn’t come so ridiculously out of the blue.
The NYT has called the author Martin Clark “the thinking man’s John Grisham.” What was he *thinking*?
September 16, 2023
I enjoy reading legal thrillers and this was no exception. I thought the plot was well done, the characters were well-developed and the pacing moved along quite nicely. It really picks up after the trial and I was vested until the end, which had a nice shocker that I enjoyed. Overall this was a great read, my first by this author and I liked it a lot! I definitely recommend this one, and I listened via audio along with the book and it was great to do so this way.
A huge thank you to @kayepublicity and @rarebirdbooks for sending me this finished copy to review.
A huge thank you to @kayepublicity and @rarebirdbooks for sending me this finished copy to review.
November 25, 2023
Not worth the rave reviews it got.
December 23, 2023
Revenge is sweet
Fast moving tale with one very bad dude and smart, honest lawyers and judges. The protagonist has us rooting for him.
Fast moving tale with one very bad dude and smart, honest lawyers and judges. The protagonist has us rooting for him.
August 1, 2023
Read an early copy and was just amazed. I didn’t think anything could top The Substitution Order, but The Plinko Bounce does. The plot from page one is a nail-biter, and you just have no idea how things will fall. The story seems so real and the twists and turns are very believable. At times, it’s as if you are in a courtroom sitting on a jury. I love the ending, and I loved how it was pulled off. Clark knows how to give readers a payoff. The cover says Martin Clark is our finest legal thriller writer and I certainly agree. Five bright stars.
December 20, 2023
I think this is Martin's best novel yet. The complexities of the legal maneuvering could only be written by someone who knows the law. The human relationships were honest and believable. The conclusion will blow your mind.
November 7, 2023
Good Evening My Fellow Book Dragons,
Our tale this evening came in the form of a Plinko Chip ..you remember that game show? The Price is Right? Yeah, one of those. As I turned it in my claws, it suddenly shot out and across the room.. bouncing and ricocheting off various things, mainly my crime fiction section of the library. This is first-time Dragon Feeder Martin Clark’s “The Plinko Bounce”.
Clark starts introducing us to a Public Defender called Andy Hughes. Andy is fried, burnt out, sick and tired of his repeat offenders and low pay. Andy is a carpenter in lawyer’s clothing. He’s getting ready to chuck it all, but he wants to finish his caseload and leave the firm he works for with a clean slate.
We then meet a rather nasty character named Damian Bullins. Damian has a penchant for fast women and strong drugs. He’s got a record as long as my arm. Damian is not only a bad guy, he’s Andy’s new client. He confessed to the murder of a prominent man’s wife and now he wants Andy to get him off.
Will Damian walk free? Will Andy survive the Plinko Bounce?
I liked this novel very much. Andy is human with an ex-wife, a young son and a new romantic prospect…he’s a decent guy. Damian is a villain you not only hate, but wouldn’t mind being the one to flip his switch.
Mr. Clark is a master storyteller and his ending is nothing I would have expected. It’s downright shocking to be perfectly frank.
If you love the courtroom drama of Grisham, you are going to love this tale by Martin Clark. This won’t be my last read of his and I hope it will be your first.
Until then, I remain, as always, your humble Book Dragon,
Drakon T. Longwitten
Our tale this evening came in the form of a Plinko Chip ..you remember that game show? The Price is Right? Yeah, one of those. As I turned it in my claws, it suddenly shot out and across the room.. bouncing and ricocheting off various things, mainly my crime fiction section of the library. This is first-time Dragon Feeder Martin Clark’s “The Plinko Bounce”.
Clark starts introducing us to a Public Defender called Andy Hughes. Andy is fried, burnt out, sick and tired of his repeat offenders and low pay. Andy is a carpenter in lawyer’s clothing. He’s getting ready to chuck it all, but he wants to finish his caseload and leave the firm he works for with a clean slate.
We then meet a rather nasty character named Damian Bullins. Damian has a penchant for fast women and strong drugs. He’s got a record as long as my arm. Damian is not only a bad guy, he’s Andy’s new client. He confessed to the murder of a prominent man’s wife and now he wants Andy to get him off.
Will Damian walk free? Will Andy survive the Plinko Bounce?
I liked this novel very much. Andy is human with an ex-wife, a young son and a new romantic prospect…he’s a decent guy. Damian is a villain you not only hate, but wouldn’t mind being the one to flip his switch.
Mr. Clark is a master storyteller and his ending is nothing I would have expected. It’s downright shocking to be perfectly frank.
If you love the courtroom drama of Grisham, you are going to love this tale by Martin Clark. This won’t be my last read of his and I hope it will be your first.
Until then, I remain, as always, your humble Book Dragon,
Drakon T. Longwitten
December 2, 2023
great book-better than Grisham
I read a lot, good literature and pulp. I’ve read all of Grisham, and Clark is much better. More accurate on the legalities (I am a lawyer), more thoughtful and more credible. I highly recommend.
I read a lot, good literature and pulp. I’ve read all of Grisham, and Clark is much better. More accurate on the legalities (I am a lawyer), more thoughtful and more credible. I highly recommend.
November 21, 2023
Honestly struggled to get through this book. The characters didn’t have much nuance and even the twist at the end was expected and far too drawn out. Kind of a meh read.
October 31, 2023
Martin Clark delivers another solid legal drama. Andy Moore is a successful and highly regarded public defense attorney. This means he’s very effective at convincing jurors of reasonable doubt in trials of his low-life, career criminals. That’s his job. But a time comes when the pain inflicted on the family of a murder victim by the murderer for whom Andy won acquittal, and the threat to the safety of Andy’s own family, force Andy to consider creative avenues to achieving justice.
March 26, 2024
Taking the witty title from a favorite game featured on The Price Is Right, Martin Clark once again lives up to the comparisons to John Grisham. A legal thriller with the characters we've come to expect from him, insider knowledge of legal shenanigans, and the possibility of decency compromised. Plus an adorable dog.
November 25, 2023
I haven’t read a legal thriller in a long time, and so perhaps I am unfamiliar with the nature of the genre. But I found the characters and dialogue highly unrealistic and off putting. I know this is a popular book, but to me it reads like a bad screen play. The MC was also unbearable to me at times, particularly his rants about how his defendant is a terrible person and his handling of a domestic violence situation he encounters. He utterly lacked nuance and his empathy seemed to have these odd, unpredictable limits. I just didn’t dig it.
October 26, 2023
For a "thriller" it completely lacked emotional motivation to keep going besides at the very end. A boring read.
March 7, 2024
Good twists at the end. First half was a bit slow but second half made up for it!
January 8, 2026
The ending made me audibly gasp! Another great story by the author.
August 16, 2024
Listened to* Good, not mind blowing but good. Fun listen on a long drive.
August 16, 2024
Listened to the audiobook on a long road trip home. Kept me entertained, however the ending felt a little stretched and too good to be true.
December 7, 2023
A fairly standard lawyer book. Missed opportunities to draw suspense. A lot of telling not showing. Everyone kept saying how amazing his son was but he was a bit of a brat in every scene he appeared.
January 28, 2024
If you like legal thrillers, you’ll like this one. Especially the second half. I’ll just ay it was a great watch to start what looks like will finally be a normal reading year for me!
September 9, 2023
Thanks to NetGalley and RB Media for the advance audiobook. The audiobook was very well done. It had multiple narrators and the accents were spot on. The regional accents combined with the quality of the acting really added humor and pathos to the story.
The story itself was fantastic. First rate legal thriller. It neither romanticized nor pilloried the law. It just took us through a murder trial defended by a great attorney in which justice was most definitely not done. Unlike other books in this genre, neither the criminals nor the cops nor the law itself are heroes. It is a job with a particular set of rules. The winners tend to be those that exploit those rules. Andy, the lawyer, clearly believes in the law above himself and understands that it is entirely separate from any notion of justice. But he finds that he himself cannot stay above the fray by sticking to the rules and has to make real life choices like everybody else. I really enjoyed this book.
The story itself was fantastic. First rate legal thriller. It neither romanticized nor pilloried the law. It just took us through a murder trial defended by a great attorney in which justice was most definitely not done. Unlike other books in this genre, neither the criminals nor the cops nor the law itself are heroes. It is a job with a particular set of rules. The winners tend to be those that exploit those rules. Andy, the lawyer, clearly believes in the law above himself and understands that it is entirely separate from any notion of justice. But he finds that he himself cannot stay above the fray by sticking to the rules and has to make real life choices like everybody else. I really enjoyed this book.
September 18, 2023
Andy Hughes is a small town public defender who is trying to do the right thing: his clients, his son, his ex wife, and his girlfriend. He is smart and honest and doing the best he can with a bad situation. I enjoyed his character and quick wit both on and off the job. This was a well done legal thriller that kept us all guessing.
Fans of Steve cavaghnas "Eddie Flynn" series should take note of this title and pick up a copy right away, as the characters of Andy Hughes reminds me of a combination of Eddie Flynn and Leroy Jethro Gibbs from NCIS.
Thank you to NetGalley and the author for my copy of this audiobook.
Fans of Steve cavaghnas "Eddie Flynn" series should take note of this title and pick up a copy right away, as the characters of Andy Hughes reminds me of a combination of Eddie Flynn and Leroy Jethro Gibbs from NCIS.
Thank you to NetGalley and the author for my copy of this audiobook.
February 19, 2024
The Plinko Bounce was written by Judge Martin Clark a retired judge from Patrick County, Virginia and it SHOWS. This is the most accurate legal thriller I have ever read. Everything about the legal system and procedure was perfect, and I loved how ethics and the Model Rules played a pretty big role in the story (reading this counts as bar prep right?). My only complaint is that this story definitely feels like it was written by an older man (which Judge Clark is) so the younger characters, especially the child character, feel pretty stale. But if you like legal thrillers this is one of the best I’ve read.
September 17, 2023
True to Life
It is clear the author knows the criminal justice system. Everything is true to life (with the possible exception of what happened to Bullin…) In addition, the author is an incredible writer. The story flows. The characters are realistic and interesting. Overall a great book.
It is clear the author knows the criminal justice system. Everything is true to life (with the possible exception of what happened to Bullin…) In addition, the author is an incredible writer. The story flows. The characters are realistic and interesting. Overall a great book.
September 16, 2024
I understand that Martin Clark has to write a publishable book, which often requires some fictionalization. But I'm perplexed as to how a former criminal defense attorney and judge could be so grossly negligent. The portrayal of the defendant makes me sick for any of Clark's former clients and for any defendant that appeared before him.
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