The Shotgun Lawyer--A School Shooting Transforms An Attorney

The F2F mystery group that I attend selected The Shotgun Lawyer by Victor Methos to discuss at their upcoming meeting in March.  I wanted to make sure I read it on time.  So I started this legal thriller at my first opportunity, when I had free time between review commitments, in February. I purchased it on Amazon, and this is my review.

                       

   I saw a review from someone on Goodreads who raked this author over the coals. He read the bio included with the book which stated that he practiced law in Utah. That Goodreads reviewer said that he couldn't find a lawyer in Utah named Victor Methos.  There's a simple explanation.  Victor Methos is a pseudonym.  That's the first thing that occurred to me when I saw the name.  In fact, I'm convinced that it's a shout out to fans of  Highlander: The Series where Methos is the oldest Immortal.  The name of the protagonist in The Shotgun Lawyer, Peter Game, could also be associated with the Methos character on the Highlander series.  Methos was played by Peter Wingfield.  The Highlander Immortals fight one another in what is called The Game.  Of course Methos fans expect him to be the victor in The Game. Am I imagining these Highlander connections because I myself am a Highlander fan?  That could be, but it does seem to me that a character named  Peter Game in a novel by Victor Methos can't be a coincidence. 

For much of the novel I felt like I needed to have a great deal of patience with Peter Game.  I had expected him to be ethically challenged considering the type of law that he originally practiced, but he also made dangerous mistakes that showed a total lack of judgment, and he committed the same errors repetitively.  Around the time when I was considering that he was truly TSTL (Too Stupid To Live), I came to the realization that he had no sense of his own value as a human being.  Peter Game would only change when he became convinced that he was worthwhile.  His school shooting case did provide him with an opportunity to achieve self-respect.  He only needed to grab hold of the gold ring on the legal merry-go-round.

Characterization in The Shotgun Lawyer was nuanced and believable.   Victor Methos brought us into the experience of  Peter Game's client, Melissa, a mother who had lost her seven year old son in the school shooting.  Peter's former fiancee, Kelly, and Craig, the law school intern who became Peter's clerk, were also well-developed.  The author gave Peter even more dimension by showing us Peter's painful regrets about his conflicted relationship with his son.  I was blown away by the number of deeply honest and powerful scenes throughout this novel.

The Shotgun Lawyer is one of the best legal thrillers I have ever read.   I expect it to be in my top ten reads at the end of 2019.