Solid research add details to the plot which equal a good story and strong characters, who are very believable. Intricate as filigree, it is impossible to know the next twist, the next turn. Stella Marz is a tarnished gem, but I admire her guts. A Catholic third generation Polish American who had to break with her family to go to college and live the life of an ambitious prosecutor, she has slowly learned how to maneuver in the murky world of politics, where every decision, and every good cause, must by necessity be linked to dirty money and even dirtier personal secrets. Steelton is an economically sick place with major industries having either left town or died. The politicians from the mayor to the police are looking for ways to make money, and they think a baseball stadium will have the power to turn things around. However, as much as they all want to help Steelton survive, downtown is a snake pit of ambition, power bases, corruption and racial divisions that endure from decades of connected history. No one grows up clean, yet politics demands public purity. Everyone knows the local mafia boss Moro must have people inside the Mayor's and the Prosecutor's office - a number of vice cases are lost under suspicious circumstances which whisper a greater criminal conspiracy. But when Public Defender Jack Novak turns up dead in a bizarre sexual S&M scene, Marz can't let it go. Thirteen years ago he had helped Stella realize her ambitions through their relationship, but he had also introduced her to sexual practices that made her wonder about her personal ethics and her own moral fault lines. Now, once again Novak is shocking her to reality, and she realizes she has been closing her eyes and doing nothing in the face of distinct clues that corruption may have crept into every political office in Steelton.When she meets a little girl who is grieving for her runaway mother, her faith in people shaken, Marz can no longer tolerate letting it go. I liked this book very much.
Patterson’s book “Protect and Defend” already appears in my list for his books about a woman lawyer who becomes Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. “Dark Lady” is also about a woman lawyer but one of his earlier efforts. It may not be as good as later books but it struck a personal chord for me.Stella Marz(ewski) is a prosecutor in a steel town (or what was once a steel town) on the shores of Lake Erie. It could be Cleveland, Toledo, Erie, Lackawanna or any number of others. I grew up in Buffalo, and except for the mills being grain related keeping the city from being covered in the grime of steel production it is one and the same. The characters and story are bathed in the ethnic backgrounds of the immigrant workers who came in the 1870’s. (Stella’s grandparents among them) There are also the WASPS, Little Italy and the immigrant southern Negro. Reading this book was like taking a trip through the neighborhoods of my childhood
What do You think about Dark Lady (2000)?
It's the holidays and so I'm continuing my winter 'beach' reads - without the necessity of sunscreen. Richard North Patterson always includes 'instructional' writing about the workings of some enterprise that involves lawyers - so I don't feel too self indulgent about spending a couple of hours reading. Initially I was optimistic that this book would offer an interesting change from the Kilcannon trilogy. Unfortunately the story is really dark. It begins with a murder and proceeds into civic corruption associated with the construction of a baseball stadium, political corruption surrounding a mayoral race and the underlying organized crime. There are good people involved in the story, but they seem so overwhelmed by the environment that I kept wondering what terrible thing would happen next. The plot seemed so close to reality that I couldn't really enjoy the diversion and kept wandering what real situations held the 'real' background.
—Joan
This book offered me what I needed last week, which was an entertaining distraction. Overall, it was a respectably done version of same-old-same-old: a mafia/crime thriller in a decaying, rust-belt small city rife with ethnic and racial tension. I think North Patterson is remarkably talented, and I believe his talents are best used when he tackles complex social issues. "Protect and Defend" is a masterpiece, and nowhere in this book do you see the talent that went on to create that kind of a project.
—Irene Anne
This is one of my favourite books. Yes its dark but its also hopeful. Stella is a frustrating character. She projects an image of being successful and together but inside she is racked with guilt over her family and the bad choices she made when she was younger. She's also openly ambitious to the point where it seems she has given up any type of a social life. I was really hoping this would be one of those books that had a sequel but I guess it was not to be. I thought with this interesting a mix of characters it would practically write itself.
—Tawny
