In this brooding, atmospheric mystery, John DeCure once again brings the seemingly disparate worlds of law and surfing together with engaging results. For J. Shepard, prosecuting attorney with the California State Bar Association, only one thing in his life keeps him centered: riding waves. When the surf is rising, J. has never had a problem coming up with an excuse to cut out of work.
But with a new fiancée and a troubling internal audit beginning at work, J. has little time these days to hit the sand. When a legal mentor from his distant past washes up in his office stinking of alcohol and hoping for a second chance at life, J. drops everything, including his surfboard. But will he be able to help? The man is in deep trouble, and J. will have to use every tool at his disposal, both in the courtroom and on the beach, to get him out of it. A wrenching, suspenseful follow-up to John DeCure's critically acclaimed Reef Dance, Bluebird Rising is a taut novel sure to please established fans and new readers alike.
His surfing passions interrupted by a new fiancée and a troubling audit, prosecuting attorney J. Shepard finds himself helping a troubled legal mentor with a case that has him utilizing every tool at his disposal. 10,000 first printing.John DeCure was a deputy trial counsel with the State Bar of California from 1993-1998. He lives and surfs in Southern California, where he was born and raised.
California's surfing lawyer, J. Shepard, who debuted in DeCure's Reef Dance (2001), has a way of letting his altruistic impulses and a penchant for irregular procedures land him in trouble. In this, his second engaging outing, Shepard agrees to be the volunteer monitor for attorney Dale Bleeker, who inspired him to take up the law and is now on the skids after a bad run of personal and professional problems. Juggling his shaky personal relationships with fiancée Carmen and her Down Syndrome brother, Albert, who have recently moved in with him, already has Shepard scrambling. Trying to add Bleeker and a wealthy but difficult client to the household may be too much. But that's what Shepard does as he tries to protect the client, who's often incoherent, and extract Bleeker from a scheme that threatens to ruin them both. DeCure takes plenty of whacks at the California legal system and its overseers within the profession and in the state legislature, but reserves the most venom for those who abuse the system at the expense of their clients. The skillfully drawn supporting characters, who include Shepard's Rottweiler, Max, help to make Shepard, whose many parts don't always add up to a well-integrated whole, more appealing than he might otherwise be-and a series hero to watch. (Dec. 8) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
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