Big Law ... Murder, money and misogyny ... Dealing with an unspeakable client ... Too much testosterone ... Crime thriller from Joanna Jenkins - someone who knows where the bodies are buried ... Book review from Anna Kretowicz
Creating entertaining, original stories out of the goings-on of lawyers at law firms is no easy feat.
It's hard not to play to stereotypes or over-egg the excitement (or not) of life as a lawyer, but Joanna Jenkins in her debut novel, How to Kill A Client, finds the sweet spot.
Jenkins' own experience in a Brisbane office of Big Law infuses the thrilling whodunnit with close-to-the-bone believability.
The fictitious firm is Howard Greene and the story is told from the perspective of three women: Viv, the only female partner who is increasingly worried about maintaining her position; Ruth, a visiting partner from Sydney, struggling with the recent loss of her husband; and Anne, the wife of the murdered man, Gavin Jones, who lies at the centre of it all.
Jones was the in-house lawyer of Howard Greene's biggest payday client. As the novel pans out, it becomes clear that Jones thrived off his ability to manipulate others and be cock of the boys' club walk.
If his style of operation at work was enough to make him unbearable - evident early in the novel by his not-so-subtle attempt to pass off Viv's work as his own - then his character at home adds another layer of disagreeable sliminess.
Jenkins deals with domestic violence all too graphically - in what is a reminder that relationships are not always what they seem on the surface.
The author deftly switches between the lives of the three women to lead the reader through the mystery, Cluedo-style, using each perspective to develop the plot and its characters.
At least this reader was kept guessing for quite a while, and Jenkins does an excellent job at breadcrumbing and dropping red herrings throughout to keep the pages turning.
Whodunnits often run the danger of too much plot, not enough character. Jenkins' experience and knowledge of life at Big Law enables her to avoid that lopsidedness.
She writes:
"To Ruth, the Brisbane office had always been a haze of coal, rugby and beer. The Brisbane partners stood around at national partner events in a circle of testosterone, their hips thrust forward, their arms crossed, exchanging manly stories about the dinosaurs they'd slain the week before. That, at least, was what their stories sounded like to Ruth: a bottomless jug of hubris."
A sharply observed truth.
Eminently readable, How to Kill a Client is an uncomfortable depiction of Big Law (minus the murder, of course). A strong debut, and hopefully more to come.
How to Kill A Client, Joanna Jenkins. Allen & Unwin