Extreme Justice

William Bernhardt

Oct 2012 · The Ben Kincaid Novels Book 7 · Open Road Media

About this eBook

DIVRetired from law, Ben Kincaid is forced to return to the bar when a case—and a corpse—fall in his lap/divDIV
After years of struggling, Ben Kincaid shuts down his small legal office and decides to make a living doing something that—compared to practicing law in Tulsa—is easy money: playing jazz piano. He buys a minivan to haul his gear, and gets steady gigs playing in a combo at Uncle Earl’s Jazz Emporium. His new career is just starting to take off when a body falls from the Emporium ceiling, knocking the wind out of Kincaid and sending him right back to his old profession./divDIV /divDIVThe dead woman is Cajun Lily Campbell, a grand dame of the Tulsa music scene and onetime girlfriend of Uncle Earl himself. And Kincaid must be careful as he readies the old jazzman’s defense, because there is a killer on the north side of town who would like nothing more than to hear the piano player’s last tune./div

Ratings and reviews

BOTTOM-LINE: Stronger story-telling than mystery . PLOT OR PREMISE: In the seventh in the series, lawyer Ben Kincaid has become disillusioned. So he runs away from the law and takes up jazz music full-time. When a body shows up on stage (literally falling on Ben), Ben has to step up as a lawyer again to save the owner of the club who has been framed for the murder. Working against the owner and against Ben is the fact that the owner served time for the murder of someone else from the old days, a friend of the owner -- and an old friend of the new victim! A few too many links and the police think they have their man. Ben wants to see justice done, but his return to the law is only temporary, supposedly. . WHAT I LIKED: The story-telling is first-rate, and the mystery aspects of it become almost secondary. Loving, Jones and Christina are all back on the scene, and you get to see one sub-mystery involving Christina. . WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: Everyone is impatient with Ben and keeps telling him to wake up and realize who he is (a lawyer, not a jazz music) and the constant angst grates on the nerves. Loving and Jones don't have much to do, and Christina's mystery drops several GIANT clues that Ben doesn't see. The ending reads more like an action / movie ending, and all three of the sub-mysteries are easily figured out by the reader before they are unveiled in the story. . DISCLOSURE: I received no compensation, not even a free copy, in exchange for this review. I am not personal friends with the author, nor do I follow him on social media.

About the author

DIVWilliam Bernhardt (b. 1960), a former attorney, is a bestselling thriller author. Born in Oklahoma, he began writing as a child, submitting a poem about the Oklahoma Land Run to Highlights—and receiving his first rejection letter—when he was eleven years old. Twenty years later, he had his first success, with the publication of Primary Justice (1991), the first novel in the long-running Ben Kincaid series./divDIV /divThe success of Primary Justice marked Bernhardt as a promising young talent, and he followed the book with seventeen more mysteries starring the idealistic defense attorney, including Murder One (2001) and Hate Crime (2004). Bernhardt’s other novels include Double Jeopardy (1995) and The Midnight Before Christmas (1998), a holiday-themed thriller. In 1999, Bernhardt founded Bernhardt Books (formerly HAWK Publishing Group) as a way to help boost the careers of struggling young writers. In addition to writing and publishing, Bernhardt teaches writing workshops around the country. He currently lives with his family in Oklahoma.