Dead Peasants Thriller Larry Thompson
A thrilling blend of courtroom scenes, fascinating characters, great locales and intricate investigation, Larry D. Thompson's Dead Peasants has it all. Lawyer Jack Bryant has the instincts of a gambler and the fortune of a rich financier when he retires from his practice and returns to the Cowtown of his youth. Of course, Jack Bryant's on the rich side of town these days, but he values his roots and values people too. Suddenly, against all my preconceptions, I find I really like him. So does Colby but she's keeping secrets. So does Jack's semi-estranged son. And so do his new friends on the wrong side of town, including the elderly widow whose husband went fishing and never came home.
Jack Bryant fishes for clues in this legal thriller as the tension grows. The excitement of a complex investigation is matched by danger and authentic courtroom drama, filled with murder plots, revelations and surprise. The modern-day world is vividly real with failed car dealerships, struggling banks and foreclosures. Some turn to legal and illegal tricks to survive while others turn to Jack, and he's determined to do them justice. By the end of this novel I don't want the story to end and I hope there'll be more. These characters are just too good to let go of.
Impossible to put down, thrilling, exciting, intriguing, just plain good fun, this book will keep you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. Highly recommended.
Disclosure: I received a free advanced reader's copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.
Larry D. Thompson brings his extensive legal experience, mixes it with a great affinity for the personality and people of Fort Worth, Texas and stirs in healthy helpings of intrigue, suspense and murder to make a great page-turner of a novel. Protagonist Jack Bryant is an old-school lawyer who's made his money and gone back to his home town to take up a second career doing pro bono work out of a motorhome. He expects to be helping poor people with their legal issues, but nothing prepares him for what happens after a local resident shows up with an unexpected life insurance check -- benefits from her husband's untimely death. Jack's ensuing investigation puts him, and his later-life love interest, in a great deal of danger.
BalasHapusI found Dead Peasants to be a highly readable thrill ride, with great characters, interesting action and trial sequences and a satisfying twist at the conclusion.
I won this book in a giveaway to promote the book and the author. I was not sure what to expect but I have to tell you that this was a very interesting story. It never let you get too comfortable in thinking you knew what was going to happen when you turned the page. I feel that the author did a great job in keeping the reader turning the pages.
BalasHapusI suggest that you get this book and see how it grabs you and keeps you going from one page to the next. You will not be sorry you gave this author a chance. Thank you Larry D. Thompson for being a great author.
An exciting and thoughtful legal thriller. A great story with great characters. Plenty of foul play with several heroes to expose their foul deeds. Most of all, as a long-time thriller fan, I found Dead Peasants highly satisfying.
BalasHapusRex Spivey
Jackson Bryant is a successful lawyer at the peak of his career. After a particularly large settlement, he decides to retire and head back to Fort Worth, TX where he grew up. His son, J.D., has just started college and is on the football team. Because of a divorce early in his son's life, Jack hasn't had a lot of time with his son and wants to be closer to him.
BalasHapusColby Stripling is the real estate agent who sells Jack his house in Fort Worth. She also decorates it for him. During this time, they get to be good friends. Jack wants more from their relationship, but Colby makes it clear there is someone else. They remain good friends.
Bored with his new life and uninterested in hobnobbing with the big wigs at the country club, Jack returns to his roots. His old neighborhood hasn't changed much, except that there are even more poor people in need of help. He decides to set up an office and do pro bono legal work.
Things are pretty quiet until Jack helps a woman who is being hounded by a credit card company. The judgement in their favor, with a write up in the local paper, blows the top off his business. He has people lined up outside to talk to him.
It's Colby who sends him his most important client. June Davis, whose late husband, Willie, worked with Colby years ago at a car dealership, has recently died. June mistakenly gets a check that was being sent to the car company, payment for a life insurance policy they had taken out on Willie when he worked for them years ago. The check isn't made out to June, it's made out to the car company. The $10,000 she was supposed to be given hasn't arrived. Jack takes the case and files to sue the car company's owner, Dwayne Allison.
Meanwhile, folks are dying under strange circumstances. Like Willie Davis, their deaths seem to be accidents. However, several attempts on Colby's life lead Jack to the conclusion that none of them were accidental.
"Dead Peasants" is a well paced legal thriller that kept this reader on the edge of her seat. I couldn't put it down. There's just enough courtroom drama to satisfy the legal types, and all of it is authentic - the author, Larry D. Thompson, is a lawyer. For the more ghoulish, there's plenty of murder and mystery to keep you entertained. Jack, Colby and J.D. keep finding and putting the pieces together, but it isn't until the end that the final piece clicks into place.
The characters in "Dead Peasants" are fully rounded and authentic. The plot moves well and the villain is purely villainous. I really enjoyed the book and highly recommend it to anyone who likes a good mystery.
� 2012 Dellani Oakes
Dead Peasants is one of those "can't put it down books". Jack Bryant stories would be a great TV series! I highly recommend Dead Peasants, but don't start it if you don't have time to read to the end!
BalasHapusA thrilling blend of courtroom scenes, fascinating characters, great locales and intricate investigation, Larry D. Thompson's Dead Peasants has it all. Lawyer Jack Bryant has the instincts of a gambler and the fortune of a rich financier when he retires from his practice and returns to the Cowtown of his youth. Of course, Jack Bryant's on the rich side of town these days, but he values his roots and values people too. Suddenly, against all my preconceptions, I find I really like him. So does Colby but she's keeping secrets. So does Jack's semi-estranged son. And so do his new friends on the wrong side of town, including the elderly widow whose husband went fishing and never came home.
BalasHapusJack Bryant fishes for clues in this legal thriller as the tension grows. The excitement of a complex investigation is matched by danger and authentic courtroom drama, filled with murder plots, revelations and surprise. The modern-day world is vividly real with failed car dealerships, struggling banks and foreclosures. Some turn to legal and illegal tricks to survive while others turn to Jack, and he's determined to do them justice. By the end of this novel I don't want the story to end and I hope there'll be more. These characters are just too good to let go of.
Impossible to put down, thrilling, exciting, intriguing, just plain good fun, this book will keep you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. Highly recommended.
Disclosure: I received a free advanced reader's copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.
I have been looking for a "new" legal thriller writer for quite a while and nailed it with this book! Kudos for writing an exciting page-turner that I couldn't put down and recommended to two friends who also bought this book and loved it. Dead Peasants is written in a style much better than Grisham ever was.
BalasHapusEspecially as an attorney, I found this book a wonderful read. It will certainly appeal to the non-lawyer as well. Highly recommend.
BalasHapusFollowing the publishing of his first two barn-burner legal thrillers, SO HELP ME GOD and THE TRIAL, the ladies in our neighborhood book club were privileged to have had author, Larry Thompson, speak at two of our meetings. We could not wait for his next novel. Now it is here! If you like John Grisham, you will love Larry Thompson! DEAD PEASANTS is Larry at his very best. His unique subject matter, "Dead Peasants" and the real life characters he has woven in and out of the book's intriguing plot, left me craving for more as I finished each chapter. Twists, turns and surprises abound in this wonderful novel.
BalasHapus