LEVINE vs. LASSITER:
AUTHOR DUELS WITH HIS HERO
Lassiter: A Novel by Paul Levine, Released Today by Random House!
“Jake Lassiter, the toughest lawyer in Miami, is back, fighting for justice and his fees, not always in that order. Paul Levine’s LASSITER is the courtroom drama of the year.” – Harlan Coben
Author Paul Levine exchanges barbs with Jake Lassiter, the linebacker-turned-lawyer of his legal thrillers. The occasion is the publication of LASSITER, out today in hardcover and as an e-book from Random House.
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Paul: You haven’t aged a day in 14 years. How do you do it?
Jake: Being fictional helps. You could use some sun. Don’t you ever get out of the house?
Paul: Careful, or I’ll kill you off in the next book.
Jake: Then what will you do? Get a real job?
Paul: Okay, just tell us about LASSITER.
Jake: Here’s what the flap says. “Eighteen years ago, Jake Lassiter crossed paths with a teenage runaway who vanished into South Florida’s sex trade. A suspect in her disappearance, Jake re-traces her steps and runs head-on into a conspiracy of Miami’s rich and powerful who would do anything to keep the past as dark as night and the girl’s fate as silent as the grave.” Sheesh. Who writes this hokum, anyway?
Paul: Lee Child says “Cracking wise and butting heads, Lassiter is the lawyer we all want our side, and on the page.”
Jake: What does Child know? His Jack Reacher character is a menace to society.
Paul: You hear what Harlan Coben says about LASSITER?
Jake: He must owe you some dough from a rigged poker game.
Paul: That’s defamatory.
Jake: So sue me, scribbler
Paul: Anything else you want to say about the new book?
Jake: Why the heck is the price $9.99?
Paul: Set by the publisher, counselor. The hard cover is $25.00 before discounts. Original price of the e-book was $12.99, but I got the publisher to reduce it.
Jake: Oh, aren’t you the hero?
Paul: If $9.99 is too much, the backlist is still priced at $2.99 on Kindle. In fact, why don’t you tell us about some of those books?
Jake: In TO SPEAK FOR THE DEAD, I defend a surgeon accused of malpractice and start to think he’s guilty of murder. In NIGHT VISION, I switch sides and get appointed to prosecute a serial killer stalking women on the Internet. In FALSE DAWN, I don’t believe my client who confesses to killing a man. In MORTAL SIN, I’m sleeping with my client’s wife.
Paul: Sounds unethical.
Jake: I knew her before she met her husband, so I’m relying on the legal principle that I’m grandfathered in.
Paul: I’m not touching that line.
Jake: You want to hear about the other books?
Paul: Not really. Readers can go to my Website for more details about LASSITER and the entire series. Thanks for taking the time to talk. Can we do this again?
Jake: Not unless you subpoena me.
by Paul Levine
Released Today by Random House!
Text-to-Speech: Enabled
Don’t have a Kindle? Get yours here.
Here’s the set-up:
Eighteen years ago, Jake Lassiter crossed paths with a teenage runaway who disappeared into South Florida’s sex trade. Now he retraces her steps and runs head-on into a conspiracy of Miami’s rich and powerful who would do anything to keep the past as dark as night and silent as the grave. In this tale of redemption and revenge, Edgar-nominated author Paul Levine delivers his most powerful thriller yet. Jake Lassiter, second-string linebacker turned low-rent lawyer, is cynical about the law, but if you hire him, he’ll take a punch for you . . . and maybe a swing at the prosecutor, too.
Amy Larkin—beautiful, angry, and mysterious—accuses Lassiter of involvement in the disappearance of her sister eighteen years earlier. What does Lassiter know about Krista Larkin, the runaway teen turned porn actress? More than he’s saying. Seeking to atone for his own past, Lassiter follows the cold trail of the missing Krista and butts head with the powerful men who also knew her: a former porn king turned philanthropist, a slick Cuban-born prosecutor who’d love to be governor, and an aging mobster who once worked for the infamous Meyer Lansky.
The evidence leads to a long-ago night of kinky sex, designer drugs—and possible murder. But before Lassiter can nail the truth, a gun goes off, a suspect falls dead, and Amy is charged with murder.
The state has an eyewitness and a slam-dunk case. Lassiter has a client he doesn’t trust and a case he can’t win. Did Amy shoot the man who killed her sister? Or the wrong man? And what really happened to Krista? The answers, buried under years of deceit and corruption, are revealed in an explosive courtroom finale proving that rough justice is better than no justice at all.
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