"Slugger: A Legal Thriller"

"Simon Schuster walked out of his chambers like Zeus upon a cloud, white hair flowing and black robe swishing as he climbed the secular altar. ... His judicial bench was raised, like in every courtroom built for the American high priests of justice. The man was in his mid-sixties, Rod guessed, and as impressive in intellectual firepower as he was in girth."

Rod is Rod Cavanaugh, "for the defense." A young star in Oregon's legal firmament, Cavanaugh, in the midst of a painful divorce from Julianne, who has mostly succeeded in turning his two teenage daughters against him, is as skilled as they come in the courtroom. Exhibit A: He gets low bail for his client, Rudy Randal, charged with "setting a disabled man's car ablaze before beating him nearly to death."

Here, in the opening chapters of "Slugger: A Legal Thriller" ($18.95 in paperback from CreateSpace; also for Amazon Kindle), Chicoan T. B. O'Neill (tboneill.com) unfolds the intricate tale of a man whose legal and personal lives become hopelessly intertwined after a series of surprising revelations. Real justice, the story implies, is not only messy but challenges faith in the legal system itself.

"Slugger" refers to a book with the same title published on Amazon by his young assistant, Brooke McCarthy, based on Cavanaugh's confidential case notes. But Brooke too thinly disguises the characters and there is a threat of a libel suit against Rod in the portrayal of Ritchie Cinquini, the man allegedly beaten by Rudy Randal. Cinquini manages Spanky's, an Oregon strip club, which in turn is owned by a mysterious not-to-be-messed-with company called CIPMANCO (Chicago Investors Property Management Company). 

Along the way there are beatings, and murders, and a blow-your-socks-off ending.

O'Neill practiced law for three decades, his website says, and now he's turned to writing, populating his novels with composite types of those he has jousted with on the legal field of battle. The courtroom scenes have the ring of authenticity. The characters are fleshed out in all their human frailty. This is masterful writing (and plotting), a legal page turner that would not be out of place on an Amazon best seller list. "Slugger" bats a thousand.