Bum Rap (26 page)

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Readers often ask, “Where do you get your ideas?”

Sometimes I rip them from the headlines. Not long ago, this story in the
Miami Herald
caught my eye:
“Tears Flow Over Guilty Verdicts at End of ‘Bar Girls’ Federal Trial in Miami.”

The subheadline read: “A Federal Judge Ordered the Three Convicted Bar Owners into Custody Immediately, Prompting Loud Wails by Relatives in the Courtroom.”

Bar girls. Federal charges. Wailing relatives. It’s all music to a crime novelist’s ears. Reading the several-thousand-page transcript, I discovered a treasure trove of drama, humor, and chicanery. Take a look at the testimony of a Russian Bar girl named Julija:

Q: Did you encourage men who came to the clubs to drink?

A: I tried to make them as drunk as possible.

Q: And why is that?

A: Because sober men will never spend as much money as drunk men.

Q: Did the men pay several thousand dollars for a single bottle of cheap champagne?

A: Their minds were on B-girls, not on credit card slip.

Q: Did you ever offer the men sex?

A: No, because I was not acting as prostitute, but I gave them hope.

Q: By zipping down their pants?

A: Yes, touching them, kissing them, anything you can think.

Q: Giving them hope that they would have sex with you?

A: All my behavior was inclining to this.

Q: And once they signed the checks you disappeared, right?

A: Yes. Fast.

That’s the moment
Bum Rap
was born and the chapter “Giving Men Hope” popped into my head, nearly fully formed. I knew Jake Lassiter would have to visit a B-girl bar, and I knew there would be a murder.

Bum Rap
brings together Lassiter, the linebacker-turned-lawyer, and mismatched law partners Steve Solomon and Victoria Lord. Lassiter last appeared in
State vs. Lassiter
, nominated for a Shamus Award. Solomon and Lord were last seen bickering and bantering in
Habeas Porpoise
, the fourth novel of their Edgar-nominated series.

I hope you have at least half as much fun reading
Bum Rap
as I had writing it.

Paul Levine

Miami—November 2014

www.paul-levine.com

ALSO AVAILABLE

JAKE LASSITER SERIES

“Mystery writing at its very, very best.” —Larry King, USA Today

TO SPEAK FOR THE DEAD
: Linebacker-turned-lawyer Jake Lassiter begins to believe that his surgeon client is innocent of malpractice . . . but guilty of murder.

NIGHT VISION
: After several women are killed by an Internet stalker, Jake is appointed a special prosecutor and heads to London and the very streets where Jack the Ripper once roamed.

FALSE DAWN
: After his client confesses to a murder he didn’t commit, Jake follows a bloody trail from Miami to Havana to discover the truth.

MORTAL SIN
: Talk about conflicts of interest. Jake is sleeping with Gina Florio and defending her mob-connected husband in court.

RIPTIDE
: Jake Lassiter chases a beautiful woman and stolen bonds from Miami to Maui.

FOOL ME TWICE
: To clear his name in a murder investigation, Jake searches for buried
treasure in the abandoned silver mines of Aspen, Colorado. (Also available in a new paperback edition.)

FLESH & BONES
: Jake falls for his beautiful client even though he doubts her story. She claims to have recovered “repressed memories” of abuse . . . just before gunning down her father.

LASSITER
: Jake retraces the steps of a model who went missing eighteen years earlier . . . after his one-night stand with her. (Also available in a new paperback edition.)

LAST CHANCE LASSITER
: In this prequel novella, young Jake Lassiter has an impossible case: he represents Cadillac Johnson, an aging rhythm and blues musician who claims his greatest song was stolen by a top-of-the-charts hip-hop artist.

STATE vs. LASSITER
: This time, Jake is on the wrong side of the bar. He’s charged with murder! The victim? His girlfriend and banker, Pamela Baylins, who was about to report him to the authorities for allegedly stealing from clients. (Nominated for the 2014 Shamus Award.)

SOLOMON vs. LORD SERIES

(Nominated for the Edgar, Macavity, International Thriller, and James Thurber awards.)

“A cross between
Moonlighting
and
Night Court
. Courtroom drama has never been this much fun.” —
Freshfiction.com

SOLOMON vs. LORD
: Trial lawyer Victoria Lord, who follows every rule, and Steve Solomon, who makes up his own, bicker and banter as they defend a beautiful young woman accused of killing her wealthy, older husband.

THE DEEP BLUE ALIBI
: Solomon and Lord come together—and fly apart—defending Victoria’s “Uncle Grif” on charges he killed a man with a speargun. It’s a case set in the Florida Keys with side trips to coral reefs and a nudist colony where all is more—and less—than it seems.

KILL ALL THE LAWYERS
: Just what did Steve Solomon do to infuriate ex-client and ex-con “Dr. Bill”? Did Solomon try to lose the case in which the TV shrink was charged in the death of a woman patient?

HABEAS PORPOISE
: It starts with the kidnapping of a pair of trained dolphins and turns into a murder trial with Solomon and Lord on
opposite
sides after Victoria is appointed a special prosecutor, and fireworks follow!

STAND-ALONE THRILLERS

IMPACT
: A jetliner crashes in the Everglades. Is it negligence or terrorism? When the legal case gets to the Supreme Court, the defense has a unique strategy: kill anyone, even a Supreme Court justice, to win the case.

BALLISTIC: A nuclear missile, a band of terrorists, and only two people who can prevent Armageddon. A “loose nukes” thriller for the twenty-first century. (Also available in a new paperback edition.)

ILLEGAL: Down-and-out lawyer Jimmy (Royal) Payne tries to reunite a Mexican boy with his missing mother and becomes enmeshed in the world of human trafficking and sex slavery.

PAYDIRT: Bobby Gallagher had it all and lost it. Now, assisted by his twelve-year-old brainiac son, he tries to rig the Super Bowl, win a huge bet . . . and avoid getting killed.

Visit the author’s website at
http://www.paul-levine.com
for more information.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Photo © Alan Weissman

The author of nineteen novels, Paul Levine has won the John D. MacDonald fiction award and has been nominated for the Edgar, Macavity, International Thriller, Shamus, and James Thurber prizes. A former Miami trial lawyer, he also wrote more than twenty episodes of the CBS military drama
JAG
and cocreated the Supreme Court drama
First Monday
starring James Garner and
Joe Mantegna. The critically acclaimed international bestseller
To Speak for the Dead
w
as his first novel. He is also the autho
r of the Solomon vs. Lord series and the thrillers
Illegal
,
Ballistic
,
Impact
, and
Paydirt
. A graduate of Penn State University and the University of Miami Law School, he lives in Coconut Grove, Florida. Readers can sign up for the author’s newsletter and be eligible for signed books and prizes at
www.paul-levine.com
. For more information about Paul Levine’s novels, visit his Amazon Author Page at
www.amazon.com/Paul-Levine/e/B000APPYKG
.