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Book Summary and Reviews of Shoot the Lawyer Twice by Michael Bowen

Shoot the Lawyer Twice by Michael Bowen

Shoot the Lawyer Twice

A Rep and Melissa Pennyworth Mystery

by Michael Bowen

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  • Oct 2008, 324 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

A verbal firefight between two colleagues at a literary conference escalates into burglary, theft, jury-tampering, forgery of an explosive papal document from World War II — and murder in Shoot the Lawyer Twice, the fourth volume in Bowen's series starring Rep and Melissa Pennyworth.

When a frat boy finds himself on trial in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for piracy on the high seas, Lawyer Rep Pennyworth, suspects he’s being used as an unwitting accomplice in a cheap publicity stunt. Meanwhile his wife Melissa, the professor-half of the couple, gets caught in the middle of a verbal firefight between two colleagues at a literary conference that soon escalates into burglary, theft, jury-tampering, forgery of an explosive papal document from World War II — and murder.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Bowen’s characters are amusing even when exasperating, and his leads are especially pleasant people to spend time with." - Publishers Weekly.

".... you'll need a scorecard to follow the cascading complications. But Bowen's powers of invention are so florid and his satirical touch so bright that most readers won't care who gets carted off to jail." - Kirkus Reviews.

This information about Shoot the Lawyer Twice was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

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Juliet

a good read
I enjoyed this. "Shoot the Lawyer Twice" is a funny whodunnit, with lots of plot twists and turns. I would have preferred a little more in the way of character development, but this was a fun read anyway. It's not great literature, but much better than the average airplane or beach novel, particularly if you like mysteries and can laugh at the excesses of academia.

Miriam

Shoot the Lawyer, please
If I had known that this was the fourth book in a mystery series, I would never have read it. As a fan of mysteries, and even mystery series, I found the plot much too convoluted and requiring far too many "look backs" to previous sections to keep characters and events in mind. The only reason I didn't give it a lower rating is that I was determined to finish it to see how it was resolved.

Molly

Shoot me Once!
At the end of the day, self interest drives the plot. But to get to this revelation, there are convoluted and abstract conversations - almost too mind numbing to follow. I have adopted the Nancy Pearl 50 page rule - if not for this review I would have put it down after 50 pages. And probably not come back.

Kathleen

Why So Intricate?
This book is well-written, and I suppose if I re-read it, everything would be connected up and I would appreciate the author's ingenuity and inventiveness. However, I would rather not work that hard. There are way too many characters and blind alleys such that, by the end of the book, I found it difficult to care about any character or his or her motivation.

Karen

Shoot the Lawyer Twice
Good story line and characters but often hard to follow. Too much going on. In my opinion it would not be a good book club pick for my group.

Kathy

Shoot the Lawyer Twice
I had to start this book twice, I felt there were too many plots and characters all at once, and found it very confusing to keep track of who belonged to what group, and what plot that was going on. It never developed one plot to an understandable point, before going on to the next. Even after starting and reading the second time I felt it was too much work to keep track of everyone and everything.

...5 more reader reviews

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Author Information

Michael Bowen

Michael Bowen, a trial lawyer practicing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is the author of numerous mystery novels, including Screenscam (2002), which introduced Rep and Melissa Pennyworth. He wrote the entry on The American Legal System for the Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing, and was a member of the panels that selected the winner of the 1995 Edgar Award for Best Mystery and the 1996 Edgar Award for Best Critical or Biographical Work.

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More Recommendations

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