The Professor: McMurtrie and Drake Legal, Book 1

This is the debut novel of Robert Bailey. For a first book I am impressed and if he writes more books I will buy them.

I found it exciting to have a different type of protagonist in this story. Not the usual handsome young, know it all, action hero but in this story we have a sixty-eight year old male law professor, Thomas Jackson McMurtrie. He was a former college football star who went on to become a professor and scholar. His wife has died recently; he has been diagnosed with bladder cancer. The new young head of the law school is forcing the entire older faculty into retirement and now it has happening to him.

Professor McMurtrie joins with one of his former law students, Rick Drake, in a wrongful death case against a trucking company. Drake is headstrong, passionate and in over his head. McMurtrie is experienced, even tempered, and of exceptional integrity and most of all he wrote the textbook on evidence law in Alabama. The story takes place in Alabama. McMurtrie gives his former student teaching assistant, Dawn, a job as law clerk for Drake.
The book is superbly written, the protagonists are engaging and the pace is fast. There is lots of action in and out of the courtroom. The plot is tightly woven and unfolds with well paced scenes. The bad guys are really bad which helps make for a dramatic story. Bailey is an attorney and that comes through in the writing.

Eric G. Dove does a great job narrating the story. Dove is a multiple Audiofile Earphone Award winning narrator. He is also an author (Ghosts of Royston) a singer and songwriter.

Forget an editor, did anyone even proof this thing before it went to the printer? For example, a mother thrown free from a wreck is afterword told by doctors that her child hadn't survived. A chapter or so later we're told that the mother... whose moving scene we listened to... also failed to survive the wreck? HUH? That's not a plot problem that's a BLACK HOLE!

Of course if it weren't for those holes there'd be NO surprises in this thing,,, so they do give a listener some sense of the unexpected. Eric Dove does a fine job though in bringing life to this comic book ensemble.

I listened to the end. Why? Now that is the only puzzle about "The Professor".

This was such a good book! The narrator was excellent!!! I wasn't really expecting this to be "my kind" of book, but I was so wrong!! I truly enjoyed it!

Holy cow, what a legal thriller! It is Robert Bailey's first novel, but the second one will be released in about six weeks. I listen to lots of legal thrillers, and this is the best courtroom drama I've listened to in a long time. The characters are well developed and vivid. The suspense is palpable. Eric G. Dove's narration is wonderful. Audiobooks do not get better than The Professor. Other than 68 year old Professor McMurtrie my favorite character is his ex-law student, and current litigator, Bocephus Haynes.

The Professor has my unqualified recommendation to all who love fiction.

*The title of this review is a song recorded By Hank Thompson in 1974. It is a reference used in the novel to refer to the 68 year old protagonist Professor Tom McMurtrie.

I might try another if I felt that the story telling improves. Expected a smooth pleasant Grisham type story and found this one rough, simple and not very engaging. Author tried to add flavor to the story but it felt artificial and disjointed.

Not really , I still enjoy the genre, but more for the human drama then then court room battle.

The stories that feature southern US locations as read by Michael Beck or Will Patton I have as some of my favorites. This one could have been in Montana or Michigan as easily as Alabama with this narrator. So yes I would have liked one that felt more regionally appropriate

The story included several moments that revolved around crude sexual context that really did not add to the story and seemed to cheapen it for me

For all of the above please keep in mind I love Michael Beck read Grisham stories and went into this one thinking it would be similar. That in hindsight was a very unfair expectation and this book may be better then I rated it.

This folksie tale of Southern duplicity in the law genre is a bit corny for my taste. It has some likable characters and some iconic villains in a 'Dixie' sense, but fails in the critical area of 'gravitas'.
Much like a TV drama, where the bar is south (no pun intended) of that of 'room temperature IQ'-land, with a little intelligence added ( it may have been there but was expunged by the soporific editors) this premise may have legs. But not within the community which values literature and the skilled use of our language, even of the 'popular' variety.
Bailey can write. Too bad it is wasted on this common denominator tripe.

Engaging story from beginning to end. Can't for the next one! Robert Bailey is a brilliant storyteller.

The story was ok, probably better if the reader had known how to pronounce certain words - like interrogatories! It is a "legal thriller".

Great book! I don't give 5 stars, but this one was definitely a 5 star. Great from beginning to end.

Fun, easy listen. Good plot, liked the characters. Just purchased his next book and excited to get to it. Thanks to the author for his talents.