The Good Client

Mitch Turner Legal Thrillers, Book 1

By: Dan Decker

Narrated by: Eric G. Dove

Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

Criminal Defense Attorney Mitch Turner is awoken in the middle of the night by a message from his nerdy law school employee Timothy Cooper begging Mitch for help. Uncertain about the problem from Timothy's cryptic texts, Mitch Turner slips into his suit and heads over to visit Timothy, unable to imagine any reason why Timothy would be calling for help at such a late hour. Mitch arrives to find the police at Timothy's apartment and learns that Timothy's roommate was murdered.

Mitch immediately retrieves Timothy from the police before they can get him to say anything more and, while in the process, has a run-in with his ex-girlfriend, who is now a detective. Mitch takes Timothy back to his office to debrief, but not long afterward, the police show up and arrest Timothy for the murder of his roommate.

There are no witnesses. There are no other suspects.

The police consider it an open-and-shut case, but the only thing that keeps Mitch from arranging a plea bargain is his belief that his client did not do it. The deeper Mitch digs, the more he learns that his client has secrets that he wants to be kept quiet at any cost, even at the expense of going to jail for something he did not do. Mitch soon learns he must work at odds with his client to provide the best legal representation possible, going around Timothy as he fights to keep his client out of jail.

Can Mitch Turner learn the truth while also serving his client's best interests?

If you like legal thrillers, this novel is for you. Mitch Turner is a fast-talking lawyer who takes risks where others might not. Fans of John Grisham, Michael Connelly, and Scott Turow will enjoy this story. Pick up your copy today!

Second edition released August 4, 2021.

Sneak peek:

I sent the message and tried to figure out what my next step ought to be. I had intentionally not asked for details but I needed to know what I was walking into.

The communications should be privileged, but I wasn’t going to trust to that, especially not in the heat of the moment.

If the fool had thought to encrypt his phone this might have been easier. My instruction to password protect his phone had been done more to protect me than him. If it wasn’t encrypted it was already too late.

From now on I was going to require every employee to encrypt their phone. Of course, I expected this would be the first and last time I would ever have an employee call me for criminal defense work.

“Ok. What next?” Timothy sent as a text.

“Our communications should be privileged,” I texted back, “assuming you want me to be your attorney. Are you retaining my services as your attorney?”

The message came back instantly. “Yes.”

“In a typical situation I would have you pay a retainer and sign an agreement, but we do not have time. We will go over the details later. I am assuming you are willing to pay. Correct?”

While this might have seemed a little self-serving, I just wanted to make sure that I had evidence to back me up if I needed to prove an attorney-client relationship had formed. What I had already done should have been sufficient, but I liked to be thorough.

“I will pay whatever I can. My dad can wire you the retainer.”

“Please be succinct in response to my next question. Assume the cops will read it so admit nothing.”

I waited.

“What are we dealing with here?” I sent a moment later. It was a minute or two before Cooper replied.

“My roommate is dead on his bed."

©2020 Dan Decker (P)2022 Dan Decker

Excellent!!!

Absolutely one of the best books I’ve listen to in a very long time! Didn’t want to put it down to go to sleep… I can’t wait to listen to the next book! One of my new favorite, authors and narrators!!

The story/narration

The story was great and was what kept me listening; however the narrators voice and the lack of any abbreviations in text caused my listening to wander and have to turn back. Voice was stiff and lacked “feeling”. Also some writing was pretty elementary, but if you had no knowledge of the legal content it would be justified.

Good characters and plot.

I liked the narrator’s voice to match the first person main character and the story development.

Reccomend

This was my first time listening to this author, and I highly recommended this book I will definitely listen to the next book in the series. Unlike some I didn’t have a problem with the narration, I thought it was fine.

Good storyline interesting

Enjoy the book, characters were okay. Felt a little rushed at the end. court room dialogue was average. as a whole it was good.

twists

dislike: no info on shooting skill of mother. how Timothy knew she killed Gordon? onr

"One bullet, one body, no burglary."

An enjoyable legal thriller. When Mitch Turner, defence attorney,
receives a phone call in the middle of the night, he is dismayed to learn that it is his young law student employee asking for his help. Timothy Cooper had returned late to the digs he shared with fellow student, Gordon to find his room mate dead, shot through the head. And Timothy was afraid that he would be blamed. Sure that the youth was innocent, Mitch went to work.

Nicely constructed characteriseation combined with an intriguingly twisty plot made This an exciting but easy read. This was further enhanced by the pleasant narration of Eric G.Dove who not only read with good pacing and full understanding of the text, he seemed to become Mitch Turner as he told the story in the first person. The other character voices were also fresh and clear. A good performance.

The Good Client was the first in a new legal mystery series. I look forward to the others still to come.
My thanks to Audible Plus for making this book freely available to UK subscribers.

Pretty good, but, poor character dialogue

The story kept me interested, however, this author does not use many contractions. In dialogue, it is always “I am “instead of “I’m“, etc. this makes the dialogue seem Stilted. It reduced the pleasure of reading this book.

Lame Story

I found the story lame with holes in it. It felt like maybe my audiobook had skipped ahead several times when it was just the story advancing. Admittedly I am a Michael Connelly fan & this book is way off any hopes for that. My husband listening with me called it sophomoric. Sorry to be negative which I never am. Maybe number 2 will be better as the main character has potential.

Glad I stuck with this one

The first few chapters were tedious as client and Mitch went around about client hiring Mitch. I fast forward thru 15 min of arguing and the story took off. I’m going to get the next book!!