Ben Kincaid isn’t fresh out of law school as the book opens, but he has always worked the public defender side of the desk. Not so in the opening pages of Primary Justice. He has signed on with a high-profile Tulsa law firm, and his only hope is that he can help others. Idealistic? No question.
His first case is a domestic situation. An employee of a client Ben’s firm represents seeks to adopt a disabled eight-year-old girl. Not super experienced in family law, Ben nonetheless agrees to take the case. He assures the older couple seeking the adoption that they must first find the birth parents, if at all possible, to ensure that they will place no obstacles in the way of the adoption. The aging dad wannabee finds the parents and loses his life in the process. Someone brutally murders him, and now Kincaid’s ex-brother-in-law, a Tulsa cop, needs help sleuthing out how the would-be father died.
The partners at the firm don’t want Kincaid involved in the investigations, but with the help of the flamboyantly dressed Christina, he digs and finds interesting answers that involve big bucks. Christina is an extraverted paralegal who spices her language with French phrases—no, no, not the kind of French we excuse ourselves for when we use profanity. This woman loves to drop French words and phrases into her speech, never mind she has no real knowledge of the language. She will become one of your favorite characters if you read this.
Before this finishes, additional people will die, and Ben’s client will endanger his life.
So why the less-than enthusiastic recommendation? Admittedly, I know nothing about practicing law. But Kincaid seems too wet behind the ears. He did a few years as a public defender but his extreme inexperience arguing before a judge costs him a case. Do public defenders never argue before a judge? There were elements of the character that seemed contradictory or incongruous to me.
That said, I will read the next book in the series in a few months. It has real promise, and I’d like to hope it just gets better.