The Flinch Factor (Attorney Rachel Gold Mysteries, 8) - Softcover

Kahn, Michael A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1464201420 ISBN 13: 9781464201424

Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press, 2013

Synopsis

"Pick it up, but only if you can afford to lose a night's sleep, because you won't be able to put it down." --Steve Martini, author of the Paul Madriani novels

Several years have passed since we last saw stunning, savvy attorney Rachel Gold. Now she is a mother, a widow, and a reluctant participant in a lost cause: the Frankenstein Case. She represents a blue-collar neighborhood fighting a developer intent on bulldozing their homes to erect a gated community. Rachel's strategy will be based on the wacky judge on the case, known to the St. Louis Bar as "The Flinch Factor."

Then Rachel gains a new client: Susannah, sister of Nick Moran, local heartthrob. Nick has been murdered, found slumped on the front seat of his pickup along an isolated lane known as Gay Way. His female groupies are, to say the least, stunned. His sister smells foul play. A skeptical Rachel agrees to check it out and turns up facts suggesting that Nick's death was not an accident. Are Nick's death and her Frankenstein case somehow related? Can Rachel uncover the truth before more lives are lost?

About this title

Review

"Interesting and quirky characters. Michael Kahn is a wordsmith with some great turns of phrase, humorous descriptions and catchy dialogue. A lawyer who knows the ins and outs of the law, and the skinny on how it's done. Kahn shows the inside seam on the underbelly of real estate development, deceitful developers and their ravenous lawyers. The Flinch Factor is a great read. Pick it up, but only if you can afford to lose a night's sleep, because you won't be able to put it down."--Steve Martini

"The Flinch Factor is another welcome addition to the wonderful Rachel Gold series, a clever engrossing legal thriller punctuated by sharp humor and many unexpected developments."--Scott Turow

"Back from a 10-year sabbatical, ebullient St. Louis attorney Rachel Gold (Trophy Widow, 2002, etc.) is faced with a Frankenstein civil suit that just won't be settled.
Nick Moran, the dishy contractor who did great work for Rachel and, evidently, every other eligible female in Missouri, has been found dead in his truck along Forest Park's Gay Way, his pants down, his manhood exposed, a lethal dose of heroin in his veins. Since his sister Susannah Beale is certain that he wasn't using or gay, she wants Rachel to find out how he really did die. The only lead Rachel and her old buddy, raffish Professor Benny Goldberg, can dig up concerns a man whose truck, labeled Corundum, was spotted at the scene. Their search for that man sparks an unexpected connection with Rachel's other big case: the suit she's pressing on behalf of Muriel Finkelstein et al., who don't want to leave their great neighborhood and its great schools so that developer Ken Rubenstein's Ruby Productions, fortified by taxpayer dollars, can bulldoze it, put up luxury homes and sell them at an obscene profit. Rubenstein has offered Rachel's clients 10 percent over the appraised value of their homes. Then he offers 15 percent and intimates that he's willing to go even higher. The residen

""Interesting and quirky characters. Michael Kahn is a wordsmith with some great turns of phrase, humorous descriptions and catchy dialogue. A lawyer who knows the ins and outs of the law, and the skinny on how it s done. Kahn shows the inside seam on the underbelly of real estate development, deceitful developers and their ravenous lawyers. The Flinch Factor is a great read. Pick it up, but only if you can afford to lose a night s sleep, because you won t be able to put it down."" Steve Martini

""The Flinch Factor is another welcome addition to the wonderful Rachel Gold series, a clever engrossing legal thriller punctuated by sharp humor and many unexpected developments."" Scott Turow

""Back from a 10-year sabbatical, ebullient St. Louis attorney Rachel Gold (Trophy Widow, 2002, etc.) is faced with a Frankenstein civil suit that just won t be settled.
Nick Moran, the dishy contractor who did great work for Rachel and, evidently, every other eligible female in Missouri, has been found dead in his truck along Forest Park s Gay Way, his pants down, his manhood exposed, a lethal dose of heroin in his veins. Since his sister Susannah Beale is certain that he wasn t using or gay, she wants Rachel to find out how he really did die. The only lead Rachel and her old buddy, raffish Professor Benny Goldberg, can dig up concerns a man whose truck, labeled Corundum, was spotted at the scene. Their search for that man sparks an unexpected connection with Rachel s other big case: the suit she s pressing on behalf of Muriel Finkelstein et al., who don t want to leave their great neighborhood and its great schools so that developer Ken Rubenstein s Ruby Productions, fortified by taxpayer dollars, can bulldoze it, put up luxury homes and sell them at an obscene profit. Rubenstein has offered Rachel s clients 10 percent over the appraised value of their homes. Then he offers 15 percent and intimates that he s willing to go even higher. The residents refuse until Rubenstein offers to walk away from the development entirely if only Rachel will promise not to initiate any legal actions against him in the future. Who could turn down an offer so clearly to her clients advantage? Only Rachel, who makes a counteroffer that gives her just enough wiggle room to drive both cases to an eminently predictable but highly satisfying climax dependent on the peculiar judicial gifts of the Honorable Howard Flinch.
The tale sags as it lumbers toward its foreordained conclusion, but it s all worth it to hear Judge Flinch tell a witness who s taking the Fifth: You re plenty incriminated already. --Kirkus
""Even better, as the investigations begin to overlap, Rachel s tense skirmishes with antagonists are balanced with warm interactions with her family and friends and zany encounters with notoriously eccentric judge Howard Flinch. Rachel may cite Raymond Chandler, but this relaxed, cheerful novel has few traces of noir."" Publishers Weekly"

About the Author

Michael Kahn is a trial lawyer by day and an author at night. He wrote his first novel, Grave Designs, on a challenge from his wife Margi, who got tired of listening to the same answer whenever she asked him about a book he was reading. "Not bad," he would say, "but I could write a better book than that." "Then write one," she finally said, "or please shut up." So he shut up--no easy task for an attorney--and then he wrote one.

Kahn is the award-winning author of: seven Rachel Gold novels; an eighth novel, The Mourning Sexton, under the pen name Michael Baron; and several short stories.

In addition to his day job as a lawyer, he is an adjunct professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, where he teaches a class on censorship and free expression. Married to his high school sweetheart, he is the father of five and the grandfather of, so far, four.

About this edition

• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1464201420
• ISBN 13: 9781464201424
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304