Lautrec

New York: Dutton, 1990. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. [6], 234 pages. Inscribed on the half-title page: To Christina--con mucho gusto! Norman Zollinger. Ink notation inside the front cover. After agreeing to represent a man who was caught burying the corpse of a fashion model, Albuquerque lawyer Jack Lautrec uncovers a conspiracy of silence and lies lurking behind the supposedly open-and-shut case. Jack Lautrec is a maverick Albuquerque, New Mexico, defense attorney. Some members of his profession consider him past his prime, one who can't resist taking on the most hopeless cases--the more impossible the better. And his multicultural sunbelt city is seemingly willing to supply one after another. But he's never been called on to defend a client in quite the way he must defend his latest one. Young artist Luis Esquibel has been caught red-handed burying the body of a beautiful model, and it's an open-and-shut matter, until Lautrec starts unreveling the police department's "airtight" case, uncovering a conspiracy of lies and silence that no one--lest of all his client--wants exposed. Jack has always worked alone, but this time he is teamed, to his surprise, with his partner--and daughter--strong-willed, attractive Marty. She has always steered clear of his kind of law, but this time she has her own reasons for joining him. Norman Zollinger was a prolific writer of Western novels. In 1971 Zollinger left a high-paying job with the family business he had brought into the era of technology to pursue his love of writing. He taught writing at the University of New Mexico and also held workshops for physically challenged veterans while writing his novels, including his prize winners, Riders to Cibola: A Novel and Rage in Chupadera. Zollinger's stories are sagas that follow Mexico's quest for independence, and his heroes and heroines are the revolutionaries, cowboys, soldiers, Native Americans, and pioneer women who forged the history of the region. The protagonist of his Meridian: A Novel of Kit Carson's West is cartographer Bradford Stone, who travels with scout Kit Carson and John C. Fremont and maps their journeys during the westward expansion. Even the inexperienced Bradford soon realizes that Fremont's purpose is to capture land, specifically California, for himself. Zollinger was a mainstream novelist who set his stories in the West. If someone said his books were regional, he insisted that his region was the human heart. Derived from a Publishers Weekly article: Zollinger has crafted a compelling mystery set in the Southwest. Jack Lautrec is a lawyer of the old school who always gets personally involved with the lost causes--and often with the lowlifes--he defends. This time the cause is Luis Esquibel, a young Hispanic artist accused of murdering his model, a black woman who was hiding from a radical Muslim group set on destroying her. The case and its resolution seem obvious, at first: Esquibel was caught burying the body by two cops on patrol. But Lautrec senses that there's more than meets the eye, especially since his client's not talking. The irascible, handicapped lawyer must do battle with his old enemy, the D.A., and with the brutalizing prison environment to find the real killer before the system does in the sensitive Esquibel. When the case turns controversial and someone takes a shot at Lautrec while he's unwillingly walking his neighbor's dog, he wins the reluctant help of his stuffy civil law partner and daughter Martine, who wants her father to upgrade his clientele--but not for the expected reasons. There are entertaining false leads and trails, but the real charm of Lautrec is the combative yet loving relationship of Lautrec pere and fille.