No Defense

by Rangeley Wallace

When her father is named the prime suspect in a racial killing thirty years in the past, a woman returns to the small Alabama town of her youth, where she finds herself forced to confront some dark secrets. Reprint.

272 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 31, 1995

About the author

I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. After college in Atlanta, I moved to D.C. for law school. I never left D.C., much to my surprise, and, in between raising four children and writing books, I have practiced public interest law and corporate law, I have prosecuted anti-trust and criminal cases, and I have represented several white collar criminal defendants facing politically motivated charges in federal court. Most recently, I have taught a variety of courses at the Washington College of Law and done pro bono work on behalf of asylum and immigration client.
Things Are Going to Slide is my second published novel. My first, No Defense, will be re-released as an e-book in the spring of 2013.

Reviews

[Peter Gunn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've given _No Defense_ four stars for the promising quality of the writing and the strong first half. Interesting civil rights back story, novel Carter-era setting, believable legal details, approachable characters. And yet I feel I'm being generous. A three and half stars effort gets rounded up.

I was disappointed by the arc of the action and the uneven tumble of the conclusion, which finished all plot points believably but still left me somehow unsatisfied. The protagonist was both engaging and flawed, but despite repeated opportunities to confront those flaws in conflicts throughout the novel, she seemed only to acknowledge those flaws once the action of the novel was essentially over, which made her more of an observer of the novel's events than an active participant. Indeed, throughout the work, the big changes in her life are done to her or for her, or they occur in unseen moments between chapters or before the novel even starts.

I'd've enjoyed seeing the protagonist redrafted as having been a lawyer herself, perhaps leaving her career ambitions with her sudden marriage and pregnancy, and then returning to the law to step up to help her father's defense. Scaling down the level of his political ambition might make her involvement in the defense seem more believable and at the same time bring proper scale to his own big-fish/small-pond character.

There was great potential here and the read was enjoyable enough. My generosity with four stars is because I'm quite willing to give the author another go, if not perhaps this particular work.