In Deepest Consequences

by Scott Kauffman

Calvin Samuels is a public defender with a passion for sticking by the underdog. His clients are desperate men and women with desperate cases. Like John Rogers. Although Samuels saved him from a life behind bars, he couldn’t save his life. Within months of his acquittal, Rogers’ body is fished from the Ohio River, two bullet holes in the back of his head. Police speculate his death was the result of a drug deal gone bad. Believing he failed a friend who depended on him, Samuels seeks redemption in the representation of Mark Alexander, accused of the brutal murder of two drug dealers. Needing to believe in his client’s innocence, however, Samuels is blind to clues that Alexander is not what, or who, he seems. Until he meets Allison Morris, Alexander’s former lover and the prosecution’s most damning witness. Could Alexander actually be Rogers’ murderer? But when the trial finally reaches its stunning conclusion, Samuels’ descent into the maelstrom has only just begun.

589 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Scott claims his fiction career began with a in-class book report written in Mrs. Baer's eighth-grade English class when, due to a conflict of priorities, he failed to read the book. An exercise of imagination was required. Scott snagged a B, better than the C he received on his last report when he actually read the book. Thus began his life-long apprenticeship as a teller of tales and, some would snidely suggest, as a lawyer as well, but they would be cynics, a race Oscar Wilde warned us knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. Scott is the author of the legal-suspense novel, In Deepest Consequences, and a recipient of the 2011 Mighty River Short Story Contest and the 2010 Hackney Literary Award. His short fiction has been appeared in Big Muddy, Adelaide Magazine, and Lascaux Review. He is now at work on two novel manuscripts and a collection of short stories. He is an attorney in Irvine, California, where his practice focuses upon white-collar crime and tax litigation with his clients providing him endless story fodder. He graduated summa cum laude from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, and in the upper ten percent of his class from Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, where he was a member of the Environmental Law Review and received the American Jurisprudence Award in Conflict of Laws.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an enjoyable, but at times confusing, legal thriller, with the usual twists, surprises and array of characters of the genre. It's a long book and I thought some of the episodes were ill-explained and at times left incomplete. I also felt that some of the characters were under-developed, so they seemed to exist within the episode of the book, but lacked a lot of context. Putting that aside, the core story is a good one and the court room scenes are not too long. It was good to read a legal thriller set in Ohio, rather than "the south", so it took a while to get the image of southern landscapes and buildings out of my mind. Certainly not a "must read", but not a bad one either.

[Stefan · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘In Deepest Consequences’ was a long, complicated, multilayered and sometimes confusing legal thriller. The depth and complexity of the setting, back-story and characters were much greater than I initially expected from a legal thriller. The novel’s main setting was also interesting because I’ve never really read a thriller set in small-town Ohio. Parts of the plot lagged in sections and the conclusion failed to adequately tie up the numerous subplots. But the end result was a thoughtful and exciting exploration of the legal system and the often vast difference between the law and justice.