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Gideon Page #1
Expert Testimony
Meet Gideon Page - wry public defender, widower caught between grief and desire and a new hero for mystery fans. Powerful Arkansas state senator Hart Anderson has been gunned down by Perry Sarver, a patient of Anderson's psychiatrist wife, Carolyn. Sarver's defense has been assigned to public defender Page who, representing a surly client accused of murdering the state's most popular politician, finds himself in a classic no-win situation. As Page uncovers various motives, the question of Sarver's mental capacity becomes an issue. Through the lawyer's interviews with doctors and lay witnesses, the reader is treated to a clear, comprehensible education regarding the insanity plea and its utilization. Meanwhile, Page struggles to give focus and structure to his personal life, including the upbringing of his daughter.
313 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
1 person is currently reading
46 people want to read
About the author
Grif Stockley
19 books13 followersStockley is the author of several books, including Race Relations in the Natural State; Daisy Bates: Civil Rights Crusader from Arkansas, winner of the Ragsdale Award from the Arkansas Historical Association and the Arkansiana Award from the Arkansas Library Association and Blood in Their Eyes: The Elaine Race Massacres of 1919, winner of the Booker Worthen Prize from the Central Arkansas Library System and recipient of a Certificate of Commendation from the American Association for State and Local History. An attorney who has worked with the Center for Arkansas Legal Services, the Disability Rights Center, and the Arkansas branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, Stockley completed Ruled by Race while serving as a historian and curriculum specialist at the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies in Little Rock.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 16, 2018
I had read later books in the "Gideon Page" series by Grif Stockley. So now I finally found a copy of volume one. I found it a good introductory volume to an enjoyable series.
Gideon Page, a public defender is assigned to defend a mentally ill person charged with killing a popular politician.
For Gideon, visitng the State Mental Hospital has a personal aspect--for his father was commied there for a short time before his death. Gideon begains the process of working through various psychiatrist's testimonies; seeking info to help his client. The writer, Grif Stockly, includes some anectodal evidence on how in-exact a science psychiatry can be.
This is not a spoiler--but Gideon is of course, also assigned to defend persons who are facing involuntary committment. A young man named Bobby is fighting commitment by his family. He is not a minor, so they must seek a court order to commit him. Gideon points out the state has not proved Bobby DANGEROUS---yes, mentally ill, but not dangerous and Bobby is released. This has no connection at all with the murder case, so Gideion is not too concerned. That night Bobby's mother calls. Bobby has just committed suicide and she holds Gideon responsible. Gideon is rocked to the core.
It's a well written chapter. Mr. Stockley shows first, even though lawyers may not show any feeling in court--their proffessional face, as it were--they often have deep feelings about their cases.
Scond, Mr. Stockly does use this chapter as a building block as much of the testimony and so on of the murder case invovles mental illness---and how it it defined and by whom?
Thrid, he shows how the legal system can backfire even on the experts. Gideon followed the letter of the law--and yet disaster occurred.
The Gideon Page series is not as well known now as it should be. They were written in the early 1990's but are worth searching for. There are five in the series. They feature good characterization--a strong point for the author. The plots themselves are average--but still enjoyable enough to be worth your time. I especially like Mr. Stockley's gift for simplifying legal jargon. Some legal thrillers I read I feel I need to take a course in Legal Terms 101. Mr. Stockley avoids that. He also avoids the "super lawyer" theme---Gideon Page is the sort of average lawyer most of us could afford if needed. Fallible, human, but persistent and loayl to his clients--Gideon is an enjoyable 'hero' for me.
Recommended for any mystery fan. More highly recommended if the 'legal thriller' is a type of mystery you really like.
Gideon Page, a public defender is assigned to defend a mentally ill person charged with killing a popular politician.
For Gideon, visitng the State Mental Hospital has a personal aspect--for his father was commied there for a short time before his death. Gideon begains the process of working through various psychiatrist's testimonies; seeking info to help his client. The writer, Grif Stockly, includes some anectodal evidence on how in-exact a science psychiatry can be.
This is not a spoiler--but Gideon is of course, also assigned to defend persons who are facing involuntary committment. A young man named Bobby is fighting commitment by his family. He is not a minor, so they must seek a court order to commit him. Gideon points out the state has not proved Bobby DANGEROUS---yes, mentally ill, but not dangerous and Bobby is released. This has no connection at all with the murder case, so Gideion is not too concerned. That night Bobby's mother calls. Bobby has just committed suicide and she holds Gideon responsible. Gideon is rocked to the core.
It's a well written chapter. Mr. Stockley shows first, even though lawyers may not show any feeling in court--their proffessional face, as it were--they often have deep feelings about their cases.
Scond, Mr. Stockly does use this chapter as a building block as much of the testimony and so on of the murder case invovles mental illness---and how it it defined and by whom?
Thrid, he shows how the legal system can backfire even on the experts. Gideon followed the letter of the law--and yet disaster occurred.
The Gideon Page series is not as well known now as it should be. They were written in the early 1990's but are worth searching for. There are five in the series. They feature good characterization--a strong point for the author. The plots themselves are average--but still enjoyable enough to be worth your time. I especially like Mr. Stockley's gift for simplifying legal jargon. Some legal thrillers I read I feel I need to take a course in Legal Terms 101. Mr. Stockley avoids that. He also avoids the "super lawyer" theme---Gideon Page is the sort of average lawyer most of us could afford if needed. Fallible, human, but persistent and loayl to his clients--Gideon is an enjoyable 'hero' for me.
Recommended for any mystery fan. More highly recommended if the 'legal thriller' is a type of mystery you really like.
April 26, 2021
Throw down your Grisham junk and pick up a Grif Stockley novel. You'll be glad you did and you'll thank me after you finish Expert Testimony, the first in Stockley's series featuring flawed defender Gideon Page.
Stockley's work makes Grisham's stuff look like a first-year creative writing student wannabe on the verge of flunking out and, albeit a wise choice, deciding to change directions and gunning for a business degree. Stockley's stuff is that good. There's plot development, continuing conflict, more than one line of story and changes in his writing - all things you don't see in the factory-mentality pace of Grisham's work. (If it sounds like I have a burr against Grisham, I do.)
More on this: When I was a young pup bureau reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2001, I mentioned to my editor that I was reading Stockley's fiction and really liked it. She said Grif was her uncle. Yeah, right, I said. But, really, he was and she set up a lunch in Little Rock where I could meet him. I fawned all over him and did the ultimate comparison everyone does with legal fiction. It's not fair that his books came out at the same time as Grisham's and didn't receive as much attention. He said it was just luck, timing and good public relations work and an aggressive communication division that helped propel Grisham to gazillions and him stuck in a downtown restaurant with a writer wannabe, myself.
In this debut, Gideon Page is a public defender in Blackwell County, which is a vague veil for Pulaski County. Peppered in the novel are real Arkansas things. Sarah, the daughter, listens to KKYK on her car radio, a real FM station that was pretty popular back in the day (Arkansas residents will remember where Craig O'Neal began). He also refers to the Razorbacks, the pre Democrat-Gazette days, the state hospital, the "freeway" that runs by the capitol, nearby towns, et al. There really is an Arkansas flavor to his work.
The selling point, to me, though is that the reader gets inside the workings of a public defender, both on the job and in his personal life. Gideon lost his wife a couple of years earlier and has met a good woman, but is struggling with the relationship. He also makes a really dumb move in his job (no spoiler alert), but he has to deal with that. Gideon is flawed like us all. Stockley doesn't resort, however, to clichés like detectives dealing with alcoholism or post traumatic issues from war or disbarred attorneys with hearts of gold trying to come back.
There are politics in this novel. Stockley's novel has heavy parts about the legal system's dealing with those deemed mentally insane. But the heart, again, of all this is while he is battling those issues, he is also fighting his personal dilemmas - raising a daughter without a mother who is at the dating age, worrying about her driving, his love life, his gay friend. Those sorts of things.
All said, Stockley's series are well worth reading. I wish he could garner the attention Grisham got because he certainly deserves it.
Stockley's work makes Grisham's stuff look like a first-year creative writing student wannabe on the verge of flunking out and, albeit a wise choice, deciding to change directions and gunning for a business degree. Stockley's stuff is that good. There's plot development, continuing conflict, more than one line of story and changes in his writing - all things you don't see in the factory-mentality pace of Grisham's work. (If it sounds like I have a burr against Grisham, I do.)
More on this: When I was a young pup bureau reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2001, I mentioned to my editor that I was reading Stockley's fiction and really liked it. She said Grif was her uncle. Yeah, right, I said. But, really, he was and she set up a lunch in Little Rock where I could meet him. I fawned all over him and did the ultimate comparison everyone does with legal fiction. It's not fair that his books came out at the same time as Grisham's and didn't receive as much attention. He said it was just luck, timing and good public relations work and an aggressive communication division that helped propel Grisham to gazillions and him stuck in a downtown restaurant with a writer wannabe, myself.
In this debut, Gideon Page is a public defender in Blackwell County, which is a vague veil for Pulaski County. Peppered in the novel are real Arkansas things. Sarah, the daughter, listens to KKYK on her car radio, a real FM station that was pretty popular back in the day (Arkansas residents will remember where Craig O'Neal began). He also refers to the Razorbacks, the pre Democrat-Gazette days, the state hospital, the "freeway" that runs by the capitol, nearby towns, et al. There really is an Arkansas flavor to his work.
The selling point, to me, though is that the reader gets inside the workings of a public defender, both on the job and in his personal life. Gideon lost his wife a couple of years earlier and has met a good woman, but is struggling with the relationship. He also makes a really dumb move in his job (no spoiler alert), but he has to deal with that. Gideon is flawed like us all. Stockley doesn't resort, however, to clichés like detectives dealing with alcoholism or post traumatic issues from war or disbarred attorneys with hearts of gold trying to come back.
There are politics in this novel. Stockley's novel has heavy parts about the legal system's dealing with those deemed mentally insane. But the heart, again, of all this is while he is battling those issues, he is also fighting his personal dilemmas - raising a daughter without a mother who is at the dating age, worrying about her driving, his love life, his gay friend. Those sorts of things.
All said, Stockley's series are well worth reading. I wish he could garner the attention Grisham got because he certainly deserves it.
December 25, 2008
When Hart Anderson is murdered in his home by Perry Sarver, a schizophrenic being treated by Anderson's psychiatrist wife, it seems like an open and shut case. Gideon Page is assigned as the Public Defender to Sarver's case, and it appears that a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity will take care of the whole incident. However, Hart Anderson was a State Senator, and there are those who do not want his killer to serve a few months in a mental hospital and then walk away from any responsibility for what he's done. It is up to Gideon Page to prove that Perry Sarver was "insane" when he shot and killed Hart Anderson in front of Anderson's wife, Sarver's psychiatrist.
What I liked most about this story was the way Grif Stockley approached the role of Gideon Page, the public defender. Page had his own experience with mental illness in his family, and he was aware of the stigma attached to such behavior. In taking this case he had to face his own feelings about how mental illness affects the attitudes and behaviors of a person afflicted with such an illness. When the subject of whether or not Sarver was faking schizophrenic behavior at the time of the shooting, Page realized how impossible it is to crawl inside the mind of another person and evaluate what motivations exist there.
I also liked the fact that this was not one of those slick lawyer novels where the attorney has all the tricks up his sleeve to be revealed with clever preparation of witnesses during a trial. There was no manipulation of the law. Page is an old-school lawyer who believes the truth should be what prevails. Page also makes mistakes, and he has to figure out how to rectify those mistakes without compromising his client. It was refreshing to read a novel about an ethical lawyer, albeit a flawed one.
I'm a big fan of legal mysteries, and I believe this one would appeal to anyone else who shares that reading interest.
What I liked most about this story was the way Grif Stockley approached the role of Gideon Page, the public defender. Page had his own experience with mental illness in his family, and he was aware of the stigma attached to such behavior. In taking this case he had to face his own feelings about how mental illness affects the attitudes and behaviors of a person afflicted with such an illness. When the subject of whether or not Sarver was faking schizophrenic behavior at the time of the shooting, Page realized how impossible it is to crawl inside the mind of another person and evaluate what motivations exist there.
I also liked the fact that this was not one of those slick lawyer novels where the attorney has all the tricks up his sleeve to be revealed with clever preparation of witnesses during a trial. There was no manipulation of the law. Page is an old-school lawyer who believes the truth should be what prevails. Page also makes mistakes, and he has to figure out how to rectify those mistakes without compromising his client. It was refreshing to read a novel about an ethical lawyer, albeit a flawed one.
I'm a big fan of legal mysteries, and I believe this one would appeal to anyone else who shares that reading interest.
February 16, 2024
Stopped reading after 115 pages.
Starting with 5 stars...
-1 star Too much filler, repeating the same ideas ad infinitum
-1 star Too much "characterizations"
-1 star Not enough interesting incidents related to the main plot
-1 star Some good, unique humor in the beginning of the book, but by page 115, it had become merely sarcasm
Starting with 5 stars...
-1 star Too much filler, repeating the same ideas ad infinitum
-1 star Too much "characterizations"
-1 star Not enough interesting incidents related to the main plot
-1 star Some good, unique humor in the beginning of the book, but by page 115, it had become merely sarcasm
May 20, 2020
I read " The Firm" and then I saw this and it looked like another book in the same vein. Well it wasn't. It was totally different and really good. The main character is a public defender and he is hilarious. Good read.
June 2, 2010
Grif wrote not many books, just a few, but all of his work is golden. This one, his first novel is the closest novel ever seen that presides over Scott Turow's, Presumed Innocent.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews