The Badger Game

by Norman Shabel

A mutilated body was found by two young hunters. It was frozen and appeared as if it had been slashed by a butcher’s knife. Part of the face was eaten away. Horace Badger, the dean of men of the nearby Reliance College had been murdered. By whom, was the question. And why?

Charged with the heinous murder is Stosh Klewzewski, leader of the violent Catholic White Knights. Defending him is Paul Flaherty, the leading criminal defense lawyer in Pennsylvania. Flaherty’s father was the former Governor of Pennsylvania and now is Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Everybody knew that Paul Flaherty was destined to follow in his father’s footsteps. Everybody except Paul Flaherty.

During the trial, the Catholic Church’s cover-up of the sexual abuse of hundreds of young altar boys came to light. Was Klewzewski and Badger involved? Or knew about them?

Flaherty was faced with the political reality that he had to win the Klewzewski murder trial. If he had lost and the damaging sexual abuse information came out into the public light, the up and coming presidential candidate, a catholic by the name of John F. Kennedy, might lose one of the most important electoral states, Pennsylvania, in the 1960 election.

Was the Catholic Church the real defendant in the Badger murder trial?

414 pages, Paperback

Published March 31, 2025

About the author

Crafted as a writer of legal mysteries for the past half-century, Norman Shabel writes every book as if it is the first and last book he will ever write.
The characters in his books are earthy and alive, whether they are good or bad people. The reader can experience the trials and tribulations that those real characters are immersed in.
Taking his enormous experience in almost every facet of our civil and criminal legal system, Shabel converts the explosive, present day topics of human misconduct into a simple, fascinating read.
Commencing with his first book, God Know No Heroes, Shabel weaved a tapestry surrounding the murder of a rabbi’s wife in New Jersey. Andrew Napolitano, the Judge on FOX News Channel, wrote: “Norman Shabel has a masterful command of the interaction of cops, judges, and defense lawyers and he has presented that to us with an added dose of international intrigue in his compelling debut novel. I couldn’t put it down.”
Shabel started to write when he first started to practice law as an Assistant County Prosecutor in New Jersey. From that very literary start, he has written nine novels, two to be released in the next few months (The Burning Gavel and Four Women).
A graduate of Rutgers University Law School, he had vigorously pursued the rights of his clients on such major legal issues involving murder, fraud and national class actions representing thousands of ordinary people all over the United States.

Reviews

[Karina · Rating 1 out of 5]

I won this book in Goodreads FirstReads. Geekily, the first thing I did was calculate my odds. 20 available copies, 769 people entered. My odds of winning assuming that selection was random were 2.6% (1/769 + 1/768 + ... + 1/750). The description of the book sounds kinda anti-Catholic.

I got the book now. It came with a coupon for another free book of the same author (pay only shipping+handling). My first impressions:

* After reading the description on flap of the jacket, I had to make sure if it's fiction or not, because it was mentioning some real-world events. Yes, it is fiction, so we should take this with a grain of salt :)

* I kinda stumbled over a word in the first sentence "unmercifully"... I guess it's a possible variant, but it seems like it would be better to say "mercilessly". Haha. I don't know; might be just me.

* Okay, the first two pages had 9 instances of the F-word... Why? Isn't that a bit much? Do we really need that? I think these characters in the prologue aren't going to show up any more, either, so it's not like it's important to their character development or something.

* This book is formatted funny. It's more like the pages on the Internet than in a book. On Internet paragraphs are separated with an extra blank line. In books usually paragraphs are indicated by a first-line indent, but no blank line in between. Well, this book has both the first-line indent and a blank line to separate paragraphs. And it's throwing me off a bit, because usually when there's a blank line in the books it indicates a sort of thought-break. "We are done with one matter, and now we are going into another scene, or another character, etc." With blank lines after each paragraph, I get a feeling that the paragraphs are disconnected. I'll get used to it, probably. It doesn't bother me online at all. It's just that this is kinda ingrained in my brains with the books.

* Ouch, glaring "its vs. it's" mistakes. Where were the editors looking, or is it supposed to be character's mistake (but then I'd suppose someone studying to become a lawyer to be aware of such basic mistakes): "The son-of-a-bitch wasn't even born in this great country yet he believed fervently that all of its citizens had a duty, a life-giving obligation, to defend it's institution and it's laws." (page 9) "its citizens" is correct, but "it's institution and it's laws" isn't.

* Some of the wording is just too flowery. It's almost as if the author forgets where he started the sentence, and either leaves it incomplete (e.g. "A sheer cliff that Rangers had climbed with the Germans entrenched just above the cliffs with machine guns and bazookas to greet the Ranger units attempting to scale those rocky cliffs soaring up from the scanty beach a hundred feet below." page 9 - also tautology much? Oh well, I can write at least this one off as a fault of the character who is writing these words.) or just keeps running with it. I certainly forget where he started when I read this sentence and then had to go back: "Captain Paul Flaherty and First Lieutenant Daniel Waterman were seated against the steel wall of the LCT that knifed through the offensive wall of ocean waves that made it appear that the craft barely moved since it was exorcised from the bowels of the ships that stayed beyond the enemy's shoreline gun batteries." (page 13) This is definitely an instance of "This is the house that Jack built".

So all these stylistic things distract me from the story so far. I'll try not to pay too much attention to it, though, and comment on the content from now on.

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Update: It actually seems rather interesting, if you can disregard the multitude of the small typographical issues. But it also is putting me off on some level. There was this sex scene, which I felt was unnecessary; just a sex scene for the sake of getting one in. Was it necessary for the plot, though? I doubt it.

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Okay finished it, just to be finally done with it. I can't really recommend this. The writing is poor, and I'm not talking just about the spelling and grammar. The portrayal of Catholics is so wrong. And one-sided: they are caricatures. The plot is revealed in the synopsis of the book; and you know what's going to happen. The only thing that is not revealed are the last couple of pages, "who done it".

[Mandy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I won this book in the First Reads contest.

This book was awful, and parts were literally painful to read.

It was slow to begin and the parts about the war were really boring. Once I got past that, it got more into the Catholic Church and their sex scandal, including a very awful scene where a priest is molesting two boys.

There is also a gang rape, though thankfully the reader only hears about that 2nd hand.

In the end, Stosh is proclaimed not guilty, but not long after the trial he is found murdered.

We get updates on the main character's life, how he married the girl, the girl died, and he become reunited with his first love and they were married.

And finally we find out who the killer is, and it's so anti-climatic that I really wanted to throw the book. Especially since even the characters go 'meh' when they find out.

All in all, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone - it was probably the most horrible book I've ever read!

[Georgiann Hennelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fantastic legal thriller , and a mystery. The author holds nothing back. This seemed more like a manly read to me. Some readers may take offense to the language and his openness but all in all it was a pretty good book

[Lauren]

I won this book! Can't wait to receive it!!

[Mwolff · Rating 2 out of 5]

I won The Badger Game in a Goodreads giveaway contest earlier this year and eagerly anticipated its arrival. Unfortunately, the book did not live up to my expectations.

First, a synopsis. This is a legal mystery concerning the trial of a truly evil man, Stosh Klewzewski, who is charged with the murder of Dean Horace Badger of Reliance College. Stosh is the leader of the vicious Catholic White Knights, which obviously has ties to the Church. The murder occurs in January 1958, and Klewzewski is being defended by Paul Flaherty, the premiere criminal defense attorney in Pennsylvania. Flaherty defends Klewzewski because he served with his father during World War II. Flaherty’s father is Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and former governor of Pennsylvania. If Flaherty wins this trial, he could follow in his father’s footsteps.

The story is told from the perspective of Flaherty’s law clerk, Sam Waterman, whose father saved Flaherty’s life during the war. As preparation for the trial progresses, Flaherty comes to believe that his client did commit murder, if not that of Dean Badger, that he is responsible for the murder of two prominent religious leaders, an orthodox rabbi and a black minister, whose bodies washed ashore on the banks of Lake Erie. By the time the trial begins, it is 1959, and John Kennedy, a Catholic, has been nominated to run for President. Also, the cover up of abuse of thousands of altar boys has come to light, and the Catholic Church is trying desperately to squelch this, not only for its own sake, but because this might damage the chances of Kennedy’s election. Klewzewski is found not guilty of the murder of Badger, but soon after is found murdered in the same manner that Badger was. Years later, at the end of the book, we find out who the killer really is, but by then it’s too late to prosecute him.

What I liked:

The friendship between Flaherty and Sam Waterman contributes a great deal to this novel, with Flaherty being a father figure to Sam. There is an interesting back story about the wartime friendships of Paul Flaherty and Daniel Waterman in the first few chapters.

I felt that this was thoughtfully written, and the main characters are well fleshed out.

Schabel has a good command of the workings of our civil and criminal legal system and deftly shows this in the legal portions of the book.

The climate of the times was evident throughout, in both the scenes with the Catholic Church and the political climate in Washington.

Schabel has a terrific understanding of the civil and criminal legal system, which he deftly integrates into the legal portions of the book.

What I didn’t like:

Two scenes in the book were especially painful to read: One incident proves Klezewski’s depravity without a doubt. He allows, no, he encourages, a group of his friends to rape his girlfriend, Louise Colleti, who the mother of his child, while he watches. Fortunately, we were not treated to a blow by blow account of this as it occurred, so to say, offstage. But then there was a truly brutal and horrific scene of a priest violently molesting two altar boys.

There was a great deal of offensive language in The Badger Game, and it was overwritten and overlong. Too many words were used, when a few would of made the point just as well.

The book was slow in the beginning until the story picks up after the first 100 pages.

The Badger Game was a decent book; it was just a big too detailed and took a while to read. As I mentioned, it was thoughtfully written, and had a good grasp on the consequences of religious, political and legal entanglements and how this affects everyone, not just the wealthy and powerful.

[Stacey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Won this in the first reads contest and needless to say it was disappointing. The first thing that I noticed about this book was that it was very testosterone filled. There are books that appeal to both sexes, but this one screams manly screams. The first 80-100 pages were completely dull and boring. The story picked up and made for a rather interesting story. Except for the fact that the author felt it necessary to put in gratuitous explicit sex scenes. If you don't want to read in detail about two young boys being raped by a priest...I suggest you don't read the book. It was disgusting and COMPLETELY unnecessary for the plot.

He laid out some good characters and really is not a horrible writer, he knew how to write to keep you wanting to find out what happened once the book got rolling. It was how he laid out the story, progressed the plot, and then eventually lets you down at the end. The end of the book where you find out who the killer was seemed almost like an afterthought. I was really disappointed with it and he could have made it so much better. The author seemed to have potential to write a better book. This story could have been SO good and it just didn't make the mark. There were spelling and grammatical errors so I hope that this was a proof even though it didn't say it was. He also had a bunch of Orthodox Jews eating BBQ ribs. Last time I checked ribs were pork and they don't eat pork. You better believe that people will pick up on this. So to sum it up...if it had a little more TLC it could be a much better story.

[Diane · Rating 2 out of 5]

Got this book from Goodreads. Couldn't wait to read it.
Boy was I disappointed in reading it. Not the best book I have read. The language was a little over done. Don't think we need all that to tell something. I know people us that langage, but I don't feel we have to have it in books. The people where boring. The story was slow. I got lost in what I was reading. I had to go back to pick up what was being told. Very disappoint, and would not recommend it.

[Audra · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I most likely will not read another book by this author, there are men in my life that I would recommed his works too. This is a manly, in your face read. The author holds nothing back and often times for me, discribes in such details, things that made me ill. However, if you can get past the language and his openess, it was a pretty good book.

[Arleen Shabel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic legal thriller, legal mystery

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

FIANALLY FINISHED...won "first-reads"my husband read it first..liked it better then I did..Started our slow,left me with a quezzy stomach

[Denise]

I won this on the Re-release contest. I can't wait to get it in the mail!

[Wendy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my favorite read. Slow moving, but I agree with other reviewers it is more a guys type of book.