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Privilege
A once-fine law firm corrupted by a power-mad partner, a beautiful, jaded attorney snared by her past to a brutal marriage, a vengeful ex-con stalker on a mission for cross-eyed justice, a lawyer murdered in his bedroom, and the honorable cop caught in the crossfire: Privilege is their story.
286 pages, Paperback
Published May 21, 2019
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11 people want to read
About the author
Claire Matturro
14 books80 followersClaire Hamner Matturro, a former lawyer and college teacher, is the author of four legal mysteries with a sense of humor. Her books are: Skinny-Dipping (2004) (a BookSense pick, Romantic Times’Best First Mystery, and nominated for a Barry Award); Wildcat Wine (2005) (nominated for a Georgia Writer of the Year Award); Bone Valley(2006) and Sweetheart Deal (2007) (winner of Romantic Times’ Toby Bromberg Award for Most Humorous Mystery), all published by William Morrow. After her romantic suspense legal thriller, Trouble in Tallahassee (KaliOka Press 2017), Claire turned more serious with her newer book, The Smuggler's Daughter (Red Adept Publishing July 2020) and she returns to the Gulf Coast of Florida that she knows so well in a gripping mystery.
And look for her newest book Wayward Girls, her joint-writing adventure with Penny Koepsel, which was released in August of this year.
Claire remains active in writers’ groups, teaches creative writing in adult education, and write reviews for Southern Literary Review.
Visit her at www.clairematturro.com
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 12, 2019
This is a quickly-paced, taut thriller full of intriguing plot twists. The main characters, especially the heroine Ruby and her sometime lover, Hank, are complex, morally ambiguous, realistic, and compelling. The secondary characters, especially Billy and Luther, are also interesting. The author’s use of description is both vivid and precise. All in all, a great read!
June 16, 2020
I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy from the Author. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.Privilege by Claire Matturro is a fast-paced story with mystery, tragedy, and some sizzle.
Did Ruby kill her husband? Even if she didn't, will she lose Hank forever?
Ruby Randolph
Ruby is our main character. I was rooting for her from the beginning. Ruby is beautiful, intelligent, and an attorney. She has the air about her that makes you either want to like her or hate her. Most men like her, and women don't care for her. She grew up in Louisiana, poor, doing drugs, and being rescued. However, she turned it around when Gardner decided he wanted her. Ok, it's more complicated than that, but that is how life is.
The one thing that I truly admired about Ruby was her self preservation. She does her best to land on her feet through it all.
Luther Downs
Luther is my favorite male character. He is by far the down to earth; hard-working, family orientated, detective that doesn't see Ruby as an object but a person. Luther is also Hank's partner and probably his best friend. Hank and Ruby have a "thing" going on. When Luther realizes this, he talks to Hank and tries to work through everything. Through all of this, Luther is such a great guy. He even uses old police contacts to try to track down information about Ruby and Billy. Luther has demons of his own to deal with too.
The Mystery
Ruby's husband Gardner is murdered in their bedroom the day after he attacks her in the office, and she moves out of the house. Gardner was trying to push the primary partner in their law firm out by messing with the books. The law firm is going to implode soon. Gardner was having an affair with one of the other associate attorneys. Ruby was having a relationship with Hank, but she tries to be a loyal friend to an old boyfriend, Billy, who recently got out of jail. Nathanial, the leading partner in the firm, is her friend and mentor, so Ruby hates what Gardner is doing to him. There are so many pieces of the puzzle. Yet, who killed Gardner?
Five Stars
Privilege by Claire Matturro is wonderfully written. I honestly didn't figure out who killed Gardner until the reveal. There are so many suspects and different motives. I loved that the story takes place in the 1980s. Ms. Matturro adds the right amount of heat to the story. Police work was different back then; they had to drive to the location and pull hard files to read them. The characters are fabulously put together with enough flaws to make them real. I love this story, and therefore I am giving Privilege by Claire Matturro five stars.
I highly recommend this book, especially if you like a good mystery with some heat.
Thank you for dropping by! I hope you enjoyed this review of Privilege by Claire Matturro.
Until the next time,
This Guest Review is for Baroness' Book Trove.
This review was originally posted on Baroness' Book Trove
Did Ruby kill her husband? Even if she didn't, will she lose Hank forever?
Ruby Randolph
Ruby is our main character. I was rooting for her from the beginning. Ruby is beautiful, intelligent, and an attorney. She has the air about her that makes you either want to like her or hate her. Most men like her, and women don't care for her. She grew up in Louisiana, poor, doing drugs, and being rescued. However, she turned it around when Gardner decided he wanted her. Ok, it's more complicated than that, but that is how life is.
The one thing that I truly admired about Ruby was her self preservation. She does her best to land on her feet through it all.
Luther Downs
Luther is my favorite male character. He is by far the down to earth; hard-working, family orientated, detective that doesn't see Ruby as an object but a person. Luther is also Hank's partner and probably his best friend. Hank and Ruby have a "thing" going on. When Luther realizes this, he talks to Hank and tries to work through everything. Through all of this, Luther is such a great guy. He even uses old police contacts to try to track down information about Ruby and Billy. Luther has demons of his own to deal with too.
The Mystery
Ruby's husband Gardner is murdered in their bedroom the day after he attacks her in the office, and she moves out of the house. Gardner was trying to push the primary partner in their law firm out by messing with the books. The law firm is going to implode soon. Gardner was having an affair with one of the other associate attorneys. Ruby was having a relationship with Hank, but she tries to be a loyal friend to an old boyfriend, Billy, who recently got out of jail. Nathanial, the leading partner in the firm, is her friend and mentor, so Ruby hates what Gardner is doing to him. There are so many pieces of the puzzle. Yet, who killed Gardner?Five Stars
Privilege by Claire Matturro is wonderfully written. I honestly didn't figure out who killed Gardner until the reveal. There are so many suspects and different motives. I loved that the story takes place in the 1980s. Ms. Matturro adds the right amount of heat to the story. Police work was different back then; they had to drive to the location and pull hard files to read them. The characters are fabulously put together with enough flaws to make them real. I love this story, and therefore I am giving Privilege by Claire Matturro five stars.
I highly recommend this book, especially if you like a good mystery with some heat.
Thank you for dropping by! I hope you enjoyed this review of Privilege by Claire Matturro.
Until the next time,
This Guest Review is for Baroness' Book Trove.
This review was originally posted on Baroness' Book Trove
June 5, 2019
There are people to whom life happens. Their course through the years is the ebb and flow of the currents created by those around them. Ruby is such a person.
Claire Matturro has created a psychologically complex character in Ruby. The reader is given an image of a young, female attorney, competent, self-assured, in charge. But slowly, layer by layer, Ms Matturro peels away the façade to reveal a woman controlled by everyone who enters her life: her powerful husband, the felon ex-boyfriend, her mentor, and even the police detective with whom she’s having an affair. Whenever Ruby attempts to take charge, wrest control from those around her, she ends up deeper and deeper in the morass of deception and secrets that is the ultimate control over her life and actions.
Privilege is a legal thriller that brings to mind the film Basic Instinct, and hints at Out of Time starring Denzel Washington. As the story is unveiled the reader is kept off balance by the gritty characterization of Ruby Randolph. Is she a victim? Or is she the orchestrator in this intricate web of misdeeds and manipulations that threaten to destroy the law firm she works for?
Everyone wants Gardner Randolph dead. He’s a powerful man, a master manipulator, a control freak, and cruel. Ms Matturro deftly captures all this with her astute use of dialogue and action. Gardner’s marriage reflects these aspects of his personality as does his machinations to oust the founding partners of the law firm. When he is found shot to death, there are plenty of suspects but the police zero in on his wife, Ruby.
Theirs was not a marriage made in heaven. Nor has the relationship improved over the sixteen years they’ve been together. Evidence of this is apparent to the detectives working the case not only in Ruby’s battered face, but in the office gossip that reaches their ears. The detectives suspect there’s a darker reason for Ruby to want her husband dead but she’s not talking. Matters are further complicated by the fact that she is having an affair with one of the detectives, Hank Rider.
The character Ms Matturro has created in Ruby is complex and at time unlikable. But there is a realism in this story that rings true. Ruby struggles against the forces that have shaped her and that now bind her. She is very realistic in that she is able to see how she’s been manipulated and controlled but fails to see how she, in turn, has used her sexuality in much the same way.
Ms Matturro also did an excellent job in developing the character of Luther, one of the detectives. As the partner to Ruby’s love interest, he is fully developed and very believable. It is his desire to protect his friend from his involvement with their chief suspect while he is driven to resolve the mystery of who killed Gardner Randolph that allows the reader to see his true character.
This is an excellent story, well written, and with complex and satisfyingly flawed characters. The intricacy of the plot will keep the reader spell bound to the end.
Claire Matturro has created a psychologically complex character in Ruby. The reader is given an image of a young, female attorney, competent, self-assured, in charge. But slowly, layer by layer, Ms Matturro peels away the façade to reveal a woman controlled by everyone who enters her life: her powerful husband, the felon ex-boyfriend, her mentor, and even the police detective with whom she’s having an affair. Whenever Ruby attempts to take charge, wrest control from those around her, she ends up deeper and deeper in the morass of deception and secrets that is the ultimate control over her life and actions.
Privilege is a legal thriller that brings to mind the film Basic Instinct, and hints at Out of Time starring Denzel Washington. As the story is unveiled the reader is kept off balance by the gritty characterization of Ruby Randolph. Is she a victim? Or is she the orchestrator in this intricate web of misdeeds and manipulations that threaten to destroy the law firm she works for?
Everyone wants Gardner Randolph dead. He’s a powerful man, a master manipulator, a control freak, and cruel. Ms Matturro deftly captures all this with her astute use of dialogue and action. Gardner’s marriage reflects these aspects of his personality as does his machinations to oust the founding partners of the law firm. When he is found shot to death, there are plenty of suspects but the police zero in on his wife, Ruby.
Theirs was not a marriage made in heaven. Nor has the relationship improved over the sixteen years they’ve been together. Evidence of this is apparent to the detectives working the case not only in Ruby’s battered face, but in the office gossip that reaches their ears. The detectives suspect there’s a darker reason for Ruby to want her husband dead but she’s not talking. Matters are further complicated by the fact that she is having an affair with one of the detectives, Hank Rider.
The character Ms Matturro has created in Ruby is complex and at time unlikable. But there is a realism in this story that rings true. Ruby struggles against the forces that have shaped her and that now bind her. She is very realistic in that she is able to see how she’s been manipulated and controlled but fails to see how she, in turn, has used her sexuality in much the same way.
Ms Matturro also did an excellent job in developing the character of Luther, one of the detectives. As the partner to Ruby’s love interest, he is fully developed and very believable. It is his desire to protect his friend from his involvement with their chief suspect while he is driven to resolve the mystery of who killed Gardner Randolph that allows the reader to see his true character.
This is an excellent story, well written, and with complex and satisfyingly flawed characters. The intricacy of the plot will keep the reader spell bound to the end.
July 31, 2019
Privilege, Claire Hamner Matturro’s latest novel, proves once again that she is a master of the contemporary legal thriller, as well as a keen observer and portrayer of the geography and culture of Florida’s Gulf Coast. The storyline here is a tightly-woven tale of inter-office intrigue (including embezzlement and more than one illicit affair), shady machinations for power and control, and murder. This sixth novel by Matturro also introduces a new protagonist, one Ruby Randolph. Like the eco-conscious Lilly Belle Cleary, her literary predecessor in Matturro’s canon, Ruby is an ambitious young attorney in a prestigious south-Florida law firm. But this lawyer is a whole new cat with different stripes. She has a troubled past, an unsettled present, and an uncertain future. And a ton of secrets: personal ones she wants to keep hidden and others she wants and – to avoid serious jail time – needs to uncover. Not the least of those secrets is the identity of the person who killed her husband and former mentor, senior law partner Gardner Randolph. There are plenty enough suspects to keep even Ruby guessing and her head spinning. Also, the law firm where Ruby has found gainful employment and a rise in social status is less secure a base than Lilly’s. In fact, it teeters precariously on the edge of total collapse. And, unlike Lilly, a junior partner, Ruby is a senior associate in her firm. That fact places her squarely in competition with Tally, another ambitious senior associate, to become the firm’s first female junior partner. In Privilege, Matturro also departs from the narrative perspective of her first four novels, where Lilly Cleary is both central character and narrator, in favor of third-person narration. The result is a more complex character in Ruby, a once street-wise teen runaway who is both victim and victimizer, predator and prey and who has never lost her hard-edged instinct for survival. I look forward to seeing more of Ruby from Matturro in the future. Chances are that other readers who give Privilege a try will also.
June 13, 2019
Privilege by Claire Matturro is not a comfortable read. You won’t sink cozily into your favorite chair for a relaxing summer afternoon. Instead, you’ll be sucked into a maelstrom akin to a coastal hurricane.
Ruby Randolph is not the girl next door, not the girl you take home to mama. She is, in fact, every mother’s worst nightmare. But she is also smart and vulnerable and loyal to a degree few people are willing to go as the cost is just too high. Did Ruby murder her husband? A part of you will hope she did, simply because she deserves that satisfaction. Another part of you will hope she didn’t, because the essence of Ruby would never survive prison. And you’ll care about that even as you wonder why you care.
As you wind your way through the myriad of possible murder suspects, you’ll be reminded that very few people are completely good or completely evil. Not the weak boyfriend Ruby never quite left behind her. Not the powerful attorney she married. Not the detective who desires her. And not the several partners who had every motive to murder a man who’d decided he no longer had need of them. Because what Gardner Randolph didn’t need, he discarded.
Privilege is a skillfully woven tale that will remind you some books are not written for pleasant relaxation and will make you hope Ms. Matturro does it again. Soon.
Ruby Randolph is not the girl next door, not the girl you take home to mama. She is, in fact, every mother’s worst nightmare. But she is also smart and vulnerable and loyal to a degree few people are willing to go as the cost is just too high. Did Ruby murder her husband? A part of you will hope she did, simply because she deserves that satisfaction. Another part of you will hope she didn’t, because the essence of Ruby would never survive prison. And you’ll care about that even as you wonder why you care.
As you wind your way through the myriad of possible murder suspects, you’ll be reminded that very few people are completely good or completely evil. Not the weak boyfriend Ruby never quite left behind her. Not the powerful attorney she married. Not the detective who desires her. And not the several partners who had every motive to murder a man who’d decided he no longer had need of them. Because what Gardner Randolph didn’t need, he discarded.
Privilege is a skillfully woven tale that will remind you some books are not written for pleasant relaxation and will make you hope Ms. Matturro does it again. Soon.
May 9, 2024
Kept me awake to finish it
Good strong writing. Good characters. I wasn’t sold on the dynamics of the law firm, however. No matter how sleazy the individual lawyers, the risk of some of the things done just weren’t commensurate with the anticipated rewards. But I can suspend my disbelief enough to thoroughly enjoy the read.
Good strong writing. Good characters. I wasn’t sold on the dynamics of the law firm, however. No matter how sleazy the individual lawyers, the risk of some of the things done just weren’t commensurate with the anticipated rewards. But I can suspend my disbelief enough to thoroughly enjoy the read.
May 21, 2019
The lies secrets and seductiveness of this book will keep you turning the pages! This will be a new favorite summer beach read! This is the book Claire Mutturro wanted to write but didn't want her mother to read.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews