Prior Convictions

Willa Jansson #4

by Lia Matera

ISBN 9781504066679 was also used on the Kindle version.

Willa Jansson is a cynical ex-radical who worked in an L.A. corporate law firm for a year and has the scars to prove it. Back home in San Francisco, her still activist parents ask her to do a favor for an ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend. And she quickly becomes embroiled in a case of conflicting interests, slow-dying passions, and political grudges that can kill....

Genres: Mystery, Fiction

196 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Lia Matera is a graduate of Hastings College of the Law, where she was editor in chief of the Constitutional Law Quarterly. She was also a Teaching Fellow at Stanford Law School before becoming a full-time writer of legal mysteries. Prior Convictions and A Radical Departure were nominated for Edgar Allan Poe awards. The Good Fight and Where Lawyers Fear to Tread were nominated for Anthony and Macavity Awards. She has written nine novels, including the critically acclaimed Face Value. Matera lives in Santa Cruz, California.

Reviews

[Avid Series Reader · Rating 1 out of 5]

Prior Convictions by Lia Matera is the 4th book of the Willa Jansson mystery series set in 1990s San Francisco. Willa is haunted by memories of the murder she witnessed of her previous employer. For the past year, she has worked in Los Angeles as a corporate lawyer. She hates the work, but it rebuilds her resume as well as her finances. The very first day of her return to the Bay Area, she visits her parents and encounters Edward, an old boyfriend (she is still angry from that relationship, and rightly so!).

Her new job is clerking for a judge, a position that usually starts a lawyer's career. But Willa is not sure she even wants to be a lawyer anymore, and she sees the job as giving her breathing space to decide.

She reluctantly agrees to do a favor for a friend of Edward's. A seemingly trivial meeting with a stranger unexpectedly launches her into a web of violence, betrayal, revenge.

Willa constantly wallows in self-pity that her parents were always more committed to radical causes than to providing her with a normal childhood. For example, they just left her with friends while they attended protest marches, got arrested, and served jail time. The discovery that they are once again more committed to a cause than to her safety plummets her into drug use and drunkenness.

As the murder victim count increases, a surprising ally emerges: a priggish clerk who at first resented Willa. He provides a necessary kick-in-the-pants to jolt her out of self-destructive behavior. Once she's targeted by the killer, Willa must rely on help from Edward too, although she knows he can't be trusted.

[Kathy KS · Rating 3 out of 5]

This series confuses me. One one hand, I find the stories interesting and the trip down memory lane about the world of the 1960s-early 1990s is fun. It's amazing how some the issues the radicals are discussing are STILL things the USA is STILL dealing with!

On the other hand, I do get tired of MC Willa's constant mental angst over her jobs, her radical parents, her relationships (or lack), and her responsibilities to all of them and more. She's now in her thirties... It's not unnatural to have these feelings, but some of us keep part of that confusion to ourselves. Unfortunately, the books are written in 1st person, so readers must share all of it with Willa...

But, as I said, the bones of the story here is interesting. Willa begins a new job clerking for a judge, a former, untrusted, lover shows up (as well as her "crush" of the past few years), and she finds herself involved in much more than she anticipated. I was dithering over whether to continue the series, then I read the selection from the next book that is included in this version; and, I was hooked again. I WILL be reading the next one, too.

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too much hand wringing introspection and not enough good story telling. This book finds Willa back in SF after a year in Los Angeles chasing the mighty dollar. She is questioning everything about her life including being a lawyer. She gets a job clerking for a federal judge and to say more would ruin what little story there is here. If you are a completionist like myself enjoy yourself. If not there are better lawyer books out there.

[Karla Huebner]

Unlike many of the numerous 80s and 90s mysteries on my shelf that I've gradually been rereading, this one held up quite well with its account of a former leftist turned uncomfortable yuppie and her difficult relationship with still very leftist parents and the old flame who gave her herpes. Having lived in the Bay Area then and known similar people, I found it captures aspects of the period very well.

[Greta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another novel set in San Francisco offers a murder mystery by Lia Matera with details about the city 's politics via her imaginary characters. Prior Convictions is a Willa Jansson mystery, my first and I look forward to reading more about her life as described by the author.

[Samantha Osborne · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really didn't like this I will not be continuing with the series all the legal talk in it made my head hurt plus about her sexual feelings and pit smoking got old fast

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: Willa is a cynical ex-radical. She's back home in San Francisco where she's helping an ex's new girlfriend. Political grudges can kill.

[Christy Roman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written, a but too charged with political jargon but easy to follow and a good twist.

[Marti · Rating 2 out of 5]

I needed a book to read at the laundromat, so I grabbed this one. It is a Willa Jansson Mystery, the mystery being--what is going on here? There is a main character who has gone thru any number of metamorpheses, from radical to lawyer, to finally a clerk to a judge. She still smokes pot--at least once in this story, she seems gullible and extemely horny. Perhaps the NY Times book reviewer read a different book than I did when he or she wrote: One of the most articulate and surely the wittiest of women sleuths at large in the genre." If it were a dot to dot, you wouldn't decipher the solution.

[LJ · Rating 2 out of 5]

PRIOR CONVICTIONS (Ama Sleuth-Willa Jansson-No. Cal-Cont) - Okay
Matera, Lia - 4th in series

From Fantastic Fiction: The betrayals and radicalism of the 1970s come back to haunt Bay Area attorney Willa Jansson when she becomes involved in the machine-gun slaying of Christine Rugieri, a woman who twenty years before had testified against her husband and his extremist cohorts.

Cute but too cute for me. Stopping this series.

[Philippa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well written, tough and savvy like Sara Paretsky but storyline was too involved, too slow, not wnough suspense or clues tied in for my liking. Too much hammering home of political ideas.

[Carrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this '80s mass market paperback mystery at a thrift store purely bc it is set where I live, SF. But I must say, it was surprisingly good!