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Overview
In this deft, multilayered thriller, a disgraced lawyer trying to revive his tattered career stumbles across a hidden case of cold-blooded murder and discovers that he must pursue justice even though doing so might just cost him what little he has left—possibly even his life.Attorney David Hirsch was the managing partner of one of St. Louis’s most prestigious law firms, until he was convicted of embezzlement and sent to the federal penitentiary for seven years. He emerges from prison humbled and genuinely contrite, eager to patch things up with his estranged daughter and to build up a modest legal practice. In forging his life afresh, Hirsch has rediscovered his Judaism and has become part of the daily minyan, the group of ten men necessary to pray together, at the synagogue near his home. When an elderly man in the group asks for his help with a product liability case involving his daughter’s death, Hirsch reluctantly takes it on—only to discover that the seemingly straightforward lawsuit conceals a cold-blooded murder.
With the help of Dulcie Lorenz, the altruistic, public-spirited attorney the dead woman worked for, Hirsch pursues the liability case while quietly amassing evidence against the highly placed person he suspects of murder. His attempt to bring his powerful adversary to justice draws Hirsch into a fierce, seesawing battle of wits—and ultimately to an act that expresses the true depth of his atonement.
A page-turner in the tradition of Scott Turow, The Mourning Sexton goes beyond the question of “who done it” to explore the more intriguing questions of why the crime was committed and what it reveals about human nature. Set against the richly textured backdrops of St. Louis’s legal establishment and the city’s tight-knit Jewish community, and animated by a vivid cast of characters, it marks the debut of an extraordinary new talent.
From the Hardcover edition.
Editorials
Library Journal
Struggling to rebuild his law practice after serving time for embezzlement, David Hirsch runs into murder when asked to take on a product liability case by a man in his minyan. A much-touted debut by a pseudonymous St. Louis lawyer. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.Kirkus Reviews
The redemption of a once-jailed, once-super lawyer accelerates when he's asked to file suit on behalf of a young woman killed in the crash of an SUV. Writing with affection for St. Louis and for his colleagues outside the white-shoe firms, attorney/first-novelist Baron picks up the story of lawyer David Hirsch as he is carefully building a new life and career. Intelligence, connections, athletic ability, and a name-brand education had taken Hirsch to a partnership in the city's best law firm, but extramarital affairs and cocaine took him even faster to the city's underside, eventually dumping him in a motel room in East St. Louis with a dead crack whore, thence to prison and the loss of his law license. Now, years later, alienated from his family, he finds solace living out the religious life he grasped in prison with the help of an exceptional chaplain. He volunteers as sexton of a fading shul, opening the building every day, phoning the members every night to make sure that there will be a minyan. His legal work is no longer high-profile cases. Under the court-mandated supervision of old schoolmate Seymour Rosenbloom, Hirsch now labors in the scrubby field of bankruptcy filings. Then he's asked by one of the grumpiest of the shul regulars, a man in the early stages of Alzheimer's, to get some justice for his daughter, who died when she was driving her inebriated employer, Judge Brendan McCormick, through a heavy snow and, according to the judge, swerved to avoid an animal and hit a tree. Investigating with assistance from attractive legal clinician Dulcie Lorenz, Hirsch quickly discovers that the young law clerk's death may have had nothing to do with top-heavy SUVs or imperfect tiresand just as quickly finds himself in pitched battle against heavyweights from his previous life. Attractive and credible characters in slightly-less-credible circumstances.Book Details
Published
April 19, 2005
Publisher
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Pages
320
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780385515191