Old City Hall - Softcover

Rotenberg, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1848540280 ISBN 13: 9781848540286

Publisher: John Murray, 2009

Synopsis

Its a morning like any other, when seventy-four-year-old Mr Gurdial Singh, former chief engineer of the India National railroad (the largest transportation company in the world), goes on his newspaper round. He is looking forward to his daily exchange with Kevin Brace, popular radio talk show host on the twelfth floor of the luxury Holmes Tower in central Toronto. But this time his customer is not waiting to greet him and when the door is eventually opened to Mr Singhs tentative knock, Mr Kevin is standing there, covered in blood. I killed her, Mr Singh, he said. I killed her.

In fact these are the last words Kevin Brace will speak. In what appears to be a watertight case of the murder of his young wife, he makes no attempt to excuse or justify her killing or explain the circumstances. What follows is a complex and richly detailed investigation of the crime and a compelling examination of the process of the law. Along the way we will meet witnesses, the police detectives, the prosecutors, the defense team, the family of the victim and of the accused and we will be propelled into the very heart of their lives: Lawrence Kelley rookie detective, but qualified lawyer, who has joined the police force partly in an attempt to solve the murder of his own brother, Ari Greene, the sophisticated tea-drinking lead investigator, son of a Holocaust survivor, who will discover in the course of the story that he is not his fathers only son, Sarah McGill, Braces first wife, who mysteriously still runs his life while making bread for her caf, Albert Fernandez, Chilean immigrant and ambitious Crown lawyer, handed his first murder to prosecute, chaotic, brilliant Nancy Parish, a defense lawyer whose client refuses to speak to her, Officer Ho, the Chinese forensic expert who may, just, have overlooked a key piece of evidence . . .

What begins as a seemingly open-and-shut case soon develops into a fascinating, intricately plotted web of lies and hidden motives, punctuated by genuine heroism.

About this title

About the Author

Ten days after he was called to the Bar in Canada, Robert Rotenberg was on a plane to Paris, France. Hed talked his way into the job of Managing Editor of Passion the English-speaking magazine of Paris. After almost two years in France, Rotenberg returned home and created his own city magazine, T.O., The Magazine of Toronto, which he edited and published for eight years. He spent a year as a film company executive, and another year as a current affairs radio producer. Then Rotenberg returned to his initial calling. Seventeen years ago he opened up his own criminal law practice and is today one of Torontos top lawyers, defending, as he likes to say everything from murder to shoplifting. Through it all he has always written. He sent his first short story to The New Yorker when he was fifteen and received a very nice rejection letter. He tapped out a screenplay on his old portable typewriter when he was in law school, and the ubiquitous novel in a drawer was his warm-up exercise for Old City Hall. Today Rotenberg lives in Toronto with his wife, a television producer at C.B.C. News, their three children and their dog. He is currently ten chapters in to his next novel.

Edition details

• Publisher: John Murray
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1848540280
• ISBN 13: 9781848540286
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 384