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Fiction. Thriller. HTML:When a single mom and aspiring actress ends up on an important jury, she must team up with an FBI agent to hunt down a vicious and powerful mob boss. Andie DeGrasse is not your typical juror. Hoping to get dismissed from the pool, she tells the judge that most of her legal knowledge comes from a bit part curling around a stripper's pole in The Sopranos. But she still ends up as juror #11 in a landmark trial against a notorious mob boss. The case quickly becomes the new Trial of the Century. Mafia don Dominic Cavello, known as the Electrician, is linked to hundreds of gruesome, unspeakable crimes. Senior FBI agent Nick Pellisante has been tracking him for years. He knows Cavello's power reaches far beyond the courtroom, but the FBI's evidence against the ruthless killer is iron-clad. Conviction is a sure thing. As the jury is about to reach a verdict, the Electrician makes one devastating move that no one could have predicted. The entire nation is reeling, and Andie's world is shattered. For her, the hunt for the Electrician becomes personal, and she and Pellisante come together in an unbreakable bond: they will exact justice . . . at any cost. James Patterson spins an all-out heart-pounding legal thriller that pits two people against the most vicious and powerful mobster since John Gotti. Judge & Jury is a stunning feat by "one of America's most influential authors" (New York Times).… (more)
User reviews
The characters allowed me to latch onto them and follow their moves, though we didn't get enough
The plot, a revenge plot that seems to work well with the mob style book, flowed well, though bogged down when trying to just set scene and detail to drag out the suspense.
Enjoyable for my first foot into the Patterson waters.
A part way through entry. This book is here with me in Australia, typical since it was here - albeit a bit further north in Brisbane that I first discovered Patterson, and I don't mean Banjo!
As is typical with
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Journal entry 5 by SKingList from New York, New York USA on Thursday, August 16, 2007
Finished this this afternoon just before leaving for dinner. At 24 hours that's about par for a Patterson book.
I liked it, though I was a bit surprised by the ending. Felt as if he was creating a division where there didn't need to be. Liked Pellisante - and his nickname by virtue of his name ending in a vowel ;) I thought the characters were well-written but as is the case with many non Cross books, I found myself wanting more with these characters although I know there won't be. I found karma to come through - for Cavello and Nordeshenko. Good read, going to release this somewhere -- just not sure where.
I'm not sure what has happened to Mr. Patterson's writing skills, but it seems to me that a majority of his novels that he has co-wrote with someone have been real duds. I just finished reading his latest release, "The 6th Target
In the story "Judge and Jury", I almost got excited and began to read pages non-stop, but then the story started to fall apart again. At this point I was reading the scene where the mob leader is on trial for murder. Does he care? No. He just solves the problem by hiring an assassin to destroy the bus that the jury panel is riding on. Murder an entire jury? I just shook my head, wondering who was next: the judge, the DA?. I know this is fiction but the scenes should have some resemblance to the real world. Then we have Nick Pellisante, the FBI agent in hot pursuit of the mobster all over the world with a bank account that seems to have no bottom to it.
It's not a terrible read, but I do feel that it is not a super mystery read. If you are a die hard fan of Mr. Patterson, you may find it an enjoyable read.
I know I shouldn't compare different books by the same author, but with having such a limited exposure to this author, I don't really have much to go on.
The way the book's written, you're introduced to several different characters. And it's kind of sad when you feel more for the bad guys in the novel than you do the FBI Agent. You learn a lot about Don Cavello from his associates, but then you are only shown slight glimpses of Nicky Smiles. The depth of that character is lacking compared to the others in the book. Hell, even the secondary character of the actress/juror/Jarrod's mother has more influence than the FBI agent whose POV is in the first person during his chapters. And see that above sentence, I just finished the book and I can't even remember the chick's name now. I even caught myself skipping over paragraphs just so I could hurry up and finish it.
It's a good story for those who like a quick read, and aren't disappointed by the lack of character development. It was quick, that's about all of the good things I can really say about it.
A friend kindly gave me her collection of audio CDs and so I promptly trundled my car down to the auto repair shop to get my CD player fixed. The first CD I chose had such low volume that I couldn't hear it in the car, but I'm glad to say my second choice was more successful. Most
The two main characters are Nick Pellisante, the detective responsible for bringing in mafia boss, Dominic Covello, and Andie, a member of the jury chosen to try him. Nick is an FBI agent who has been on Covello's heels for a large part of his career. Andie is a single mother and part-time actress, who really doesn't want to be on the jury at all.
Their paths cross at various times during the case, but their joint desire to see Covello brought to justice results in a satisfying denouement.
Initially this looked like being a court case-based fiction, but I'm glad to say that it broadened out into something a bit more interesting. My main problem with it was the structure of "build-up, emergency, solution", which seemed to be on repeat throughout the book. It got a bit irritating and predictable after a while.
I'd only read one Patterson book before, 1st To Die, but this felt similarly formulaic and I won't be rushing back to read another.
I know it's necessary to paint the bad guy in a horrible light,
It was intriguing the way James allowed the characters to deal with the bad guys, keeping in focus that Andie was just an actress before Cavello took her son's life and thus no super-heroine with extraordinary skills. Well done.
Overall, an entertaining read in the James Patterson style we've become accustomed to.