Billy Strobe; A Novel
New York: Signet, 2002. First Signet Printing [stated]. Mass market paperback. [10], 530, [4] pages. Ink notation on the last page. Very slightly cocked. Includes Acknowledgments; Part 1, Inside; Part 2, Outside. John S. Martel is an American lawyer and novelist. A former Air Force pilot, Martel graduated with a law degree the law school of the University of California, Berkeley. He joined the San Francisco firm of Farella Braun & Martel in 1964. He has tried over a hundred trials, losing just four, and consulted for the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office on both the O.J. Simpson and Menendez trials. He successfully represented Robert Mondavi in the landmark case of Mondavi vs. Mondavi. He obtained the then-highest verdict in Virginia history in V.I.P. vs. SCM Corporation and successfully defended the Hearst Corporation in a three-month federal jury case, Pacific Sun vs. The Chronicle, the Examiner, et al. The "National Law Journal" listed him among the Top Ten Trial Lawyers in America. In 1988, he was awarded the San Francisco City and County Certificate of Honor by the Board of Supervisors in recognition of his achievement as a national trial lawyer and his work in behalf of the homeless. He entered the world of fiction in 1988 with the courtroom thriller Partners and followed that in 1995 with Conflicts of Interest. All of his novels, including The Alternate and Billy Strobe have been either regional or New York Times bestsellers. His most recent novel is "The American Lawyer," published in 2012. Martel won the 100 meter hurdles in the U.S. National Masters Track and Field Championships in 1997, running the fastest time in the world for his age group. Billy Strobe is a lawyer and an ex-con, a man who believes in the law but always seems to be on the wrong side of it, in this powerful suspense novel. Ambition and intelligence carry him to the top of his law school class and into a stock market scam gone south. After a stint at a high security prison, he finally takes on the fight of his life--clearing the names of the two men he respects most. One is a soft-spoken lifer he befriended in jail, and the other is Billy's father, the best criminal defense lawyer in Oklahoma until alcoholism, allegations of fraud, and a suicide on the eve of his imprisonment ended his life. But things are not as they seem, and Billy's dual quest for justice will entangle him in high-level conspiracies and vicious murders, ultimately forcing him to choose between loyalty and protecting a woman he has come to love. Derived from a Kirkus review: A legal thriller about a white collar criminal-turned-neophyte lawyer who tries to clear his dead father’s name, get his best friend out of jail, and survive as a first-year lawyer. Billy Strobe is a hard-luck “Okie” who made it through a couple years of law school in California before getting caught up in a stock-market swindle with some of his richer classmates. They ratted him out and he took the prison time. While serving it, he undergoes the usual terrorizing by his fellow prisoners, though he’s able to placate their leader by offering to be his jailhouse lawyer. Billy bonds with a fellow Okie, Darryl Orton, whom Billy believes was framed for the murder he was convicted of. Amazingly enough, not only does Billy complete his law degree by correspondence, but the San Francisco firm Stanton and Snow offers him a job when he gets out of jail. Billy is no sooner a free man than he’s making a six-figure salary at S&S. Not being a guy who likes to rest on his laurels, he gives himself a few extra tasks on top of the usual massive workload of a first-year lawyer: get Darryl Orton out of jail and clear the name of his, Billy’s, own father, a renowned defense lawyer who, accused of corruption, committed suicide when Billy was younger. Condition: Very good.
Keywords: Suspense, Novels, Legal, Thrillers, Darryl Orton, Murder, Prison, Criminals, Law Firms, Ex-Convict, White Collar Crime, Conspiracy, Swindle, Loyalty, Framed, Stock Market, Scam
ISBN: 0451206681
[Book #80197]
Price: $17.50