Lot's of dogs books
Authors: David RosenfeltNarrator: Grover Gardner
Duration: 99H 99m
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐🌑
Tags: Detective - Comedy - Thriller
Audiobooks about Defence Attorney and his dog Tara and his friends. It feels like by the end of the last book everyone he knows is getting arrested. Every book follows same format where they are searcing slowly for clues which are revealed in the last one hour of the book and there is a sudden plot twist.
Quotes
1 - Open and Shut
I’ve never really had a problem with reporters. I treat them as human beings, not as objects to be manipulated. I find I can manipulate them better that way. I’ve long ago learned that in dealing with the press, sincerity is the most important quality you can have. If you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made.
If you watched Geraldo or Larry King or any one of a hundred cable shows that covered the Simpson trial or the impeachment debacle, then you noticed that ninety-five percent of all the legal pundits they use are dubbed “former prosecutor.” It’s sort of like being a baseball manager: Every day you’re in the job you’re one day closer to being fired. Except every day you’re a prosecutor, you’re one day closer to quitting. The overwhelming feeling in the profession is that “former” is the best kind of prosecutor to be.
2 - First Degree
I do have another request of Hatchet. “Your Honor, if we call Special Agent Hobbs, I would like to qualify him as an adverse witness. He has been antagonistic toward the defense throughout these proceedings.” Qualifying a witness as adverse, or hostile, allows me to question him as if it were a cross-examination, giving me the leeway to ask leading questions.
3 - Bury the lead
TRIALS DO NOT creep up on a lawyer. Birthdays and holidays creep up. The start of the baseball season creeps up. Trials steamroll; one minute it seems like you have plenty of time to prepare, and the next the bailiff is asking you to rise.
I’ve known Vince for about a year. He’s cantankerous and obnoxious on the surface, but when you chip that away and dig deeper, you find him to be surly and disagreeable. You probably could say Vince and I have become good friends, if your definition of “friends” isn’t too rigid. We’re not “Ya- Ya Brotherhood” types, but we hang out some in sports bars and trade insults, which fits my definition pretty well.
Because the murders have been committed in three different communities, no one department has jurisdiction, and the state cops have taken over. Even though they’d never admit it, the mayors of the towns in question are breathing a sigh of relief. Real pressure is starting to mount to catch this guy, and the intervention of the state cops takes them off the political hook.
The weekend starts tonight, and I am very much looking forward to it. Laurie is going to spend the entire time at my house, which at first glance seems like an increase in our normal scheduled time, but really isn’t. That’s because it’s a college and pro football weekend, which means that even though we’ll be in the same house, we’ll have almost no daytime interaction.
He shrugs. “Companies that people deal with share the information with other companies—that’s part of it. But you wouldn’t believe how many people sit in their rooms and type their life into their computers.” He shakes his head sadly. “All the lonely people . . . where do they all come from?”
4 - Sudden death
I describe Ugly, though it is a basic, not very helpful description. I have no comprehension of how some people can remember faces as well as they do. More amazing is how they can describe them. It’s not even just a question of memory; if you gave me a picture of someone to refer to, I still couldn’t describe him or her well enough for a police artist to draw.
I like this guy. He inhabits another world that coexists on the same planet as mine, but he seems to be honest, enthusiastic, and probably smart.
She seems to be lecturing him on the intricacies of crossword puzzle solving, a speech she is uniquely qualified to give. Edna is to crossword puzzles what Gretzky was to hockey, alone on a level above all possible competition.
He’s brought in cuffed and dressed in prison drab. I had thought he looked bad huddled in the corner of his living room yesterday, but compared to this, he actually appeared triumphant. It looks as if fear and despair are waging a pitched battle to take over his face. The process of losing one’s freedom, even overnight, can be devastating and humiliating. For somebody like Kenny, it’s often much worse, because he’s fallen from such a high perch
We are eventually ushered into the office of Greg Burroughs, president of production at the studio. With him are a roomful of his colleagues, each with a title like “executive vice president” or “senior vice president.” There seems to be an endless supply of gloriously titled executives; I wouldn’t be surprised if there are three or four “emperors of production.” The lowest ranked of the group is just a vice president, so it’s probably the pathetic wretch’s job to fetch the coffee and donuts. It turns out that the overflow crowd is there merely as a show of how important we are to them, and everybody but Greg and a senior VP named Eric Anderson soon melts away. Greg is probably in his late thirties, and my guess is, he has ten years on Eric.
5 - Dead Center
Generally on a case I view events and information through the prism of the legal system in general and its likely effect on a jury in particular. Even though a trial is often referred to as a search for the truth, that’s not my job. My job is to convince a jury to accept my truth, which is that my client is not guilty of the crime for which he or she is charged. This detective stuff comes with a different mandate. I’ve got to find the real truth, actually extract it from people who don’t want to give it up. By definition those people are dangerous, and by definition I am not. I have a natural inclination to avoid danger, an inclination often referred to as cowardice, which leaves me with a dilemma. It’s hard to avoid danger when the truth is hiding behind it and I’m after the truth. I’m finding that another difference between lawyering and detecting is the gaps between events. When I’m on a case, I can fill those gaps with preparation for trial. In my detecting mode, I often find that I’m sitting and waiting for something to happen, like right now, when I’m waiting for Laurie to find out information regarding the flight plans in and out of the tiny Center City Airport.
I place a call to Janet Carlson, the best medical examiner in New Jersey and the best-looking medical examiner in the entire world. Janet has been incredibly helpful to me since I did her a favor a number of years ago, and now I’m calling on her one more time. … I like Janet a lot, and if I decide that Rita Gordon represented the beginning of my sleeping with every woman in the justice system in New Jersey, Janet is going to be right at the top of my list. I owe her at least that much.
6 - no 6 book in Audio - play dead
7 - New Tricks
’LL NEVER AGAIN describe waiting for a verdict as the most stressful thing I have ever faced. Not after sitting in that hospital room while Laurie was in a coma, fighting for her life. Nothing compares to that, but waiting for the jury to rule is no day at the beach. I’m naturally pessimistic when it comes to this point in the trial, and Kevin is naturally optimistic. The truth is that neither of us knows what the hell he is talking about. Jury verdicts are impossible to predict. It’s an accepted maxim that the longer the jury is out, the better for the defense. That is because defense teams usually consider a hung jury to be a victory, and the longer a verdict watch goes, the more likely that somebody on one side or the other is holding out. Of course, like everything else, this accepted maxim is by no means always accurate. I have seen juries vote to acquit in an hour, and vote to convict after two weeks. So the way I deal with my stress is to hang out and try not to think about the verdict. The longest I have successfully avoided those thoughts is about twenty minutes, but as I recall they were a very peaceful twenty minutes.
WE NEED A PERRY MASON MOMENT. Actually, what we really need is Perry Mason, but since he must be pushing 130 years old, we probably have a better chance at getting one of his moments. A Perry Mason moment is when the witness cracks under the relentless pressure of a brilliant defense attorney and confesses to the crime right on the stand. A perfect example of it was when Tom Cruise asked, “Did you order the code red?” and Jack Nicholson screamed back at him, “You’re goddamn right I did!”
I call Pete Stanton, tell him that I am reporting a possible crime, and ask him to come out with a forensics team. “What happened?” he asks. “Somebody threw a hamburger into my backyard.” “Those bastards,” he says. “I’m sending out a SWAT team, and I’ll tell them to bring ketchup.”
I DON’T PLAY GOLF, I don’t watch golf, and I don’t get golf. I just can’t get interested in anything that requires a “tee time.” Even if I wanted to play, if I went for a four-hour walk on the grass without taking Tara, she would turn me into a giant steak bone. Everything about golf is grossly oversize. First of all, it takes forever. People drive to a club, get dressed, play eighteen holes, and then spend more time talking about it than it took to play. It’s a full day’s operation; I can watch six college basketball games in that time, and drink beer while I’m doing it. And the space these golf courses occupy is unbelievable. The one I am driving along now, the one at Charles Robinson’s club, is endless. If this amount of land were in a normal city, it would have four congressmen. The idea of taking turns swinging a stick every ten minutes has no appeal for me. One of the reasons, I think, is that I prefer games where defense can be played. Football, basketball, baseball, even pool, all include attempts to prevent the opposition from scoring. Golf doesn’t, and that for me is crucial. It’s probably why I became a defense attorney. I don’t like golf, or swimming, or figure skating, or anything else in which defense isn’t a major factor.
For some reason I have a compulsion to arrive at airports well in advance, especially when I’m picking someone up. It makes no sense, because planes almost never arrive early. And on the rare occasions that they do, they compensate for it by arranging for the arrival gate not to be ready, so that the plane has to sit on the tarmac until it is. And the ugly truth is that planes could be early, if the airlines so desired. Nothing is more annoying than sitting on a plane that is late in taking off, and having the pilot announce that he will “make up time in the air.” If they could fly faster when they’re late, why not fly faster all the time? Can you imagine a bus driver on a seventy-mile-per-hour highway arbitrarily deciding to go forty?
I go along a driveway that slopes upward until I come to the house, an amazingly impressive structure that looks straight out of Gone with the Wind. I consider myself independently wealthy, having inherited over twenty million dollars from my father a few years back. If I were willing to part with all of it, I could probably afford the Timmermans’ garage.
8 - dog tags
I spend the evening reviewing my approach for our witnesses. I just try to go over the basic facts and make sure I can recall them completely and instantly. I never prepare actual questions to memorize or read during trial; it cuts down on the spontaneity. But even in direct testimony, surprises can take place, and I have to be prepared to deal with them instantly and effectively.
SCIENCE HAS ITS place in a trial, but prosecutors differ on where that place is. Their varying opinions on how juries receive scientific evidence especially impact on the order of the witnesses they call, and that decision can set the tone for the entire trial to follow. Scientific testimony is drier than eyewitness or motive testimony, and some prosecutors believe it should therefore come first, when jurors are eager and alert. It also provides a more compelling proof, harder to refute, and introducing it first might render a juror more receptive to the “why” and “how” testimony to follow. The majority of prosecutors take a differing view. They want their case to be an unfolding story, told in the same general chronological order as the crime was committed. Therefore, since forensic proof by definition must follow the crime, the witnesses who present it should bring up the rear. If the eyewitness and motive evidence in this latter approach is compelling, the prosecutor can demonstrate the defendant’s guilt independent of the forensics. When the science is finally introduced, it serves as ironclad confirmation of what the jury already knows, and it is therefore even more unassailable by the pathetically weak defense, in this case me.
Billy knows what to show the jury, and what not to show them. They should see dignity, and thoughtfulness, and courage in the face of adversity. They should not see emotion, especially in this case. Billy is being accused of letting emotion and a desire for revenge cause him to murder; his acting emotionally now would only feed into that. Emotion can also be easily misinterpreted. Tears of anguish can be construed as tears of guilt; outrage at a witness’s falsehoods can be taken as anger that the truth is being revealed.
PATIENCE WAS NEVER something willie Miller ever really had patience for. It made sense, seeing as he had wasted seven years sitting in a prison for a murder he didn’t commit. He certainly wouldn’t want to waste more of his life waiting or sitting around. But the truth was that Willie was an impatient person long before he ever went to prison, and that trait simply continued afterward.
THE INSTITUTE FOR Energy Independence’s motto is “the future is happening all around us.” Which may be true, but the directors chose a building that stopped representing the future around 1908. It’s old and run- down, with an elevator that has to make rest stops on its way up to the sixth-floor offices.
FOR ME, A murder case officially begins when I go to the scene. It gives me a feel, a context, for what happened, and I find that invaluable. It’s the difference between sitting on the fifty-yard line at a football game and reading a newspaper account of the same game.
TRIALS, LIKE FOOTBALL games, are won or lost by teams, not individuals. The lawyers, the investigators, the expert witnesses, and the client are all integral to the process, and must function smoothly together. It is much more difficult than it sounds. Teamwork is, in fact, one of the many built-in advantages that the prosecution side generally has in its favor. The same people, all employed by the government, work together on many cases throughout the year. There is usually a substantial familiarity among the lawyers, police, forensics people, and expert witnesses on the prosecution side, and they don’t have to waste time trying to develop a cohesive unit.
There’s something obnoxiously charming about Billy, but I’ve always been able to resist obnoxious charm. Maybe it’s because I possess so much of it myself.
Many people, when talking about their dogs, laughingly praise them by saying that the dog thinks it’s human, as if being human is something a dog might aspire to. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent a lot of time dealing with the criminal justice system, but the average dog I know is paws and shoulders above my species. Dogs almost unanimously possess dignity, compassion, and innate intelligence. In these areas, humans tend to be a little more hit or miss. But Tara rises above them all.
Kevin is a brilliant attorney, and the perfect complement to me. He takes great pleasure and pride in writing detailed legal briefs and obsessing over the minutiae that can be so critical in the course of a trial. I see myself as more of a big-picture strategist, which means I’m lazy and I bore easily.
Dancing, other than slow dancing, makes absolutely no sense to me. I don’t understand the enjoyment anyone could get from standing in one place and wildly gyrating. If it’s such a blast, do these people turn on the radio when they’re alone at home and start doing contortions? I don’t think so. So if they only do it in public, it must be because they’re being watched by other people. They clearly think they look good doing it. They don’t. If rooms like this were ringed with mirrors, 95 percent of all dancing would be eliminated. This kind of dancing also violates my space-alien principle. I judge things by the measure of whether aliens, landing on earth for the first time, would observe something and deem it stupid. And unless the aliens were from the Planet Bozo, dancing would land squarely in the “stupid” category.
9 - One dog night
This is going to be a monster of a story. Anything unsavory involving a judge is automatically big news. Judges represent an occupation that people hold in very high regard. That reverence is a little weird, because lawyers are scorned almost as much as politicians. Where do people think judges come from, the Judge Fairy? They’re lawyers, and very often lawyers who’ve leveraged political connections to get where they are. For the most part the ones I know are decent people, but the truth is I would say the same about lawyers.
I have one significant advantage over Dylan in this situation, and that advantage could be called unfair. Most judges, when faced with a decision like this, are more inclined to side with the defense than the prosecution. The reason for that bias is that if the defendant is convicted, the defense can appeal the verdict. If the verdict is for acquittal, the case is over with no appeal possible. That would be double jeopardy, and is absolutely prohibited. So to side with the prosecution is to invite a future appeal, and if there is anything a judge hates more than annoying lawyers like me, it is being overturned on appeal. Siding with the defense, at least on matters that could go either way, is a way to avoid that embarrassment. No judge would ever admit that this is a factor, and no lawyer would ever doubt that it’s often the determining one. There is also the more human side. To send someone away for the rest of his life is a very serious matter, and compassionate judges would certainly try to avoid doing that unjustly. It just seems easier and more decent to let the jury decide what they believe, rather than preventing them from hearing it at all.
Among the more admirable qualities of ruthless crime bosses is their punctuality.
I believe in being completely honest with my clients, except when I think it is in their best interest to conceal things or flat-out lie to them. My moral compass pretty much always points south.
The most important courtroom in America, at least for financial matters, is in Delaware. Most people are surprised to hear that, since Delaware has never been confused with Wall Street as a center of high finance. It’s called the Delaware Chancery Court, and it has been home to some of the most significant financial trials in American business history. Many of them have gone completely unnoticed by those outside the business community, but the verdicts have on some level affected everyone. Delaware’s achieving preeminence in this area was the result of design. Favorable state tax laws attracted companies from all over the country, not to make Delaware their corporate headquarters, but rather to make it the state in which they incorporated. So when those same companies are involved in lawsuits, that is naturally where those suits are tried. Over time, the court has also come to be known for its competence. It is a place where decisions are rendered by its judges strictly according to the law. Lawyers don’t have to worry about renegade judges making unsupported decisions, and surprises are a rarity. And lawyers hate surprises. This outstanding legal reputation frequently brings “business” into Delaware by mutual agreement of companies that are not even incorporated there. When these companies enter into contracts with each other, they often agree in advance that if they eventually have a dispute, it will be settled in Delaware.
Breakfast is not the most important meal of the day. Lunch is where the action is. It’s where deals are brokered, alliances are forged, careers are made, lies are told, backs are stabbed, and lives are ruined. And then it’s time to get the check.
Almost everybody, even the wealthy or powerful, reached a point in their lives when they needed or wanted something that they couldn’t get. Very often accomplishing that goal would be very embarrassing, very illegal, and nearly impossible. So Fowler’s “team” provided the money or the muscle necessary to make it happen.
We get back around nine-thirty, and I’m mildly surprised to see a car in front of the house. It’s the only car parked on the street; there’s an ordinance that during the night all cars must be in driveways or garages. The fact that this one is parked in front of my house leads me to the possibility that someone is visiting me, or Laurie, or Tara. Or not. I am Andy Carpenter, deducer supreme.
I need to be entertained. I’ve never been into quiet, reflective thinking, or meditation, or introspection, or any of that stuff. I can be alone; that’s no problem at all. But if I am I want the TV on, or a book to read, or someone to talk to, or something, anything, to do. My best thinking comes when I’m doing something other than thinking. But the time I am absolutely at my most comfortable, when I don’t need or want outside diversions at all, is when I’m walking Tara. It’s my version of yoga, but without the bending and chanting.
“Because once the evidence is found, a mass murderer will pay for his crimes. And you’ll be well compensated. It’s a win-win for everyone.” Danny had to that point lived a life with very few wins, so a “win-win” sounded really good.
“Time to step up! Time to step up and make a play!” Sports fans who are not knowledgeable, and even some of the weaker TV analysts, seem to feel that all deficiencies are due to a lack of effort, and “stepping up” is the all-encompassing solution to all competitive problems.
10 - not here - leader of the pack
11 - unleashed
We’re ready to go, and Laurie kisses me. I’ve got a hunch she doesn’t do so because I’m adorable but rather because it could be the last time we’ll ever get to do it. That would be a shame. Marcus doesn’t kiss me, which is just as well, but he does give me the handgun I’ll be using. He had shown me how to use it in the motel— basically just pointing and pulling the trigger. If I have to use it, I may add in some moaning and whimpering, just to jazz it up.
The Los Angeles parade would begin in Griffith Park, where a large crowd would assemble and the speeches would be given. Every politician of consequence would be there. There was no way they would miss a chance to publicly praise the troops and honor those who had lost their lives in service. Some of the tributes would be sincere and heartfelt, and some less so. But participating in the event, vowing undying support for the U.S. military, was an absolute must to maintain political viability. It was okay to vote to cut funds for veterans’ health care, but don’t dare miss a chance to jump on the Memorial Day bandwagon.
“How would you kill me?” I asked. \n “That’s easy. I’d get you to commit suicide.” \n “How?” \n “Make you talk about relationships, bring you to couples therapy, buy you a treadmill, disconnect your cable TV, get you a subscription to the ballet…” \n “What an awful way to go,” I say. \n She smiles. “Just don’t get on my bad side.”
Is industriousness contagious? Can you catch a work ethic from someone? And is there a cure?
Mine is a simple life. I don’t clutter it with rules, and I refuse to be bound by rigid preset routines. Of course, there are certain things I do and others I don’t do. I think that in the last televised NFL game that I missed, the players wore leather helmets. I will never turn off a Seinfeld or Honeymooners rerun, and if Daniel Day-Lewis is in a movie, I’m there opening day. Conversely, I have never been to a ballet or an opera since someone was foolish enough to invent them, I will neither read a Russian novel nor eat their soup, and you couldn’t strap me into a chair to watch a soccer game. But there is one thing I do religiously, not because I’m obligated to but rather because it gives me immense enjoyment. I cannot remember the last day I didn’t take a walk with my golden retriever, Tara. I do it because I enjoy spending time alone with her; it clears my mind and lets me focus on that which is important. I also do it because she so obviously loves it, and it’s a pleasure to watch her. The only thing better than taking a walk, just Tara and me, is taking a walk, Tara, Laurie, and me. They are my two loves, and living under the same roof as them, and sharing walks with them, make every day the best one of my life. The only obvious exceptions to that are the two days that the Giants beat the Patriots in the Super Bowls.
The aircraft flew twenty-one thousand feet above them, and they could neither hear nor see it. There were no passengers on board the flight; there never were. No flight attendants, no carry-on baggage compartments, no tray tables to be stowed, not even any seats to be restored to their original upright positions. The pilot, Sergeant Brian Cole, could see the cars clearly, but even if the men stopped, took out incredibly powerful telescopes, and peered upward, they could not have seen him. That’s because they were in the mountainous region of Pakistan, near the Afghanistan border, and he was sitting in a room at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, drinking coffee and nibbling on a blueberry muffin. The aircraft that Cole was piloting was a MQ-1B Predator drone. Many people thought of drones almost as small model airplanes, carrying cameras and functioning as eyes in the skies. But this one was twenty-seven feet long, had a wingspan of fifty-five feet, and weighed almost fifteen hundred pounds, including its two Hellfire missiles.
12 - Hounded - not finished yet
TO ADD