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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN num: 9781551669076
ISBN number: 1551669072
Label: Mira
Manufacturer: Mira
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 448
Printing Date: 2002-05
Publishing house: Mira
Sale Popularity Level: 193093
Studio: Mira
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Product Description:
Barbara Holloway has a reputation for taking on the toughest cases . . . and winning them. But this time she's up against an unbeatable opponent -- her father, the lawyer who taught her all she knows.
Gus Marchand, a hardworking, God-fearing farmer, is found dead on his kitchen floor, and suspicion soon falls on Alex Feldman, Marchand's hideously deformed neighbor. At the request of another attorney, Barbara agrees to defend the young man, whom most of the town has already condemned.
But there is another suspect, as well: Hilde Franz, a woman Gus had a very public altercation with just before he was murdered. Hilde also happens to be an old friend of Barbara's father, Frank, who, unaware of his daughter's involvement in the case, agrees to represent Hilde.
For the very first time in her career, Barbara cannot turn to her father for advice. Quite the contrary: she has to stay one step ahead of him if she's to have any hope of saving her client. Because she knows only too well what kind of legal mind she's up against.
Amazon.com Review:
Oregon lawyer Barbara Holloway and her father, Frank, formerly her partner, find themselves on opposite sides in the murder of Gus Marchand, a case with two suspects. Kate Wilhelm gives this smoothly told version of 'Beauty and the Beast' an interesting added dimension, since the relationship between the two equally hardheaded and talented lawyers has usually been collaborative, at least professionally. But when the school principal, who's Frank's client, dies under mysterious circumstances, Frank's determined not to let Barbara pin the blame on the dead woman in order to deflect attention from her own as-yet-unidentified client. By the time Frank learns that the defendant in question is Alex Feldman, a horribly disfigured and immensely secretive young man who was accused by Marchand of stalking his teenage daughter, the reader has begun to understand why Barbara is so convinced of Alex's innocence in Gus's death and so determined to protect him from public scrutiny.
Alex is a man with a secret: was Frank's late client (and friend) killed to protect it? As usual, Wilhelm devises a clever plot and peoples it with a cast of well-developed, fully human and complex characters. There's Alex himself, who's found a way to cope with the circumstances of his disfigurement and the rage and bitterness that might otherwise have consumed him; Graham Minick, the elderly doctor who has been his friend and confidante since he was a teenager; and Shelley, Barbara's beautiful young associate, who sees beyond Alex's ugliness and into his heart. By the time the trial of the man they call 'the devil's spawn' begins, Frank and Barbara are on the same side, but it's the younger Holloway's star turn in the courtroom, which is where the novel really shines. A solid page turner that should delight the prolific Wilhelm's (No Defense, Defense for the Devil) many fans. --Jane Adams
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Rated by buyers 
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Simply put, this is an absolutely outstanding novel. It was my very first exposure to Kate Wilhelm and I was quite impressed. The story is interesting and retained my interest to the end, so much so that I have already ordered other Barbara Holloway novels. Wilhelm's describes her characters well, and her writing never intrudes. We immediately take a dislike to the bigoted primary victim. Our sympathy for the accused, a badly disfigured, but highly talented editorial artist, builds as the story develops. The legal machinations are intriguing and the plot unfolds in a believable way. The resolution of the mystery may surprise many readers, and if you become fully immersed in the story, the novel's post denouement conclusion may bring empathetic tears of happiness.
One Note: The number of important characters is probably slightly more than one might expect, e.g., in a cozy mystery, and the reader may need to make a few brief notes to keep all of them clearly in mind if completing the novel will extend over more than just a few days.
Rated by buyers 
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I concur with the reviewer who noted Wilhelm's one-demensional treatment of Christian characters, as opposed to the depth with which she treats characters who either espouse no religion or are not identified as belonging to a particular religious sect. It smacks of intellectual laziness to take the easy route and ridicule those whose deeply held religious beliefs placed them at odds with (in this case) the education establishment. While it's true that nobody is perfect, and it would be just as unfortunate if Wilhelm had attributed perfection to these characters, the story would have been far better had the Marchand parents and other Christian characters been painted with more than one color.
Those considering the unabridged audio version of this book might want to make another selection. I'm not sure whether Marguerite Gavin always narrates like this, or whether she was just having a bad day, but her work is alternately jarring, grating, and outright bad when it comes to her (mis)pronounciation of well-known Pacific Northwest geography. One such example is her pronounciation of "Willamette," which will drive anyone familiar with the Northwest, the Willamette River, or Willamette University up the proverbial wall.
Rated by buyers -
Barbara Holloway takes on yet another difficult, unusual case. But this time her father is on the same case. Different suspect. Can they sort out their relationship enough to remain father and daughter? Or will the lawyer in them both make life unbearable as each tries to make their case for their client?
Fantastic character development and descriptions.
Rated by buyers -
In this mystery,Kate Wilhelm uses a disfigured man as the main suspect for a murder and as the story unfolds she makes us aware of how much importance society places on looks.I thought this was an unusual premise for a murder mystery.As always her books are suspenseful,surprising and this story also has a happy ending.I highly recommend this author especially if you love the Pacific Northwest.
Rated by buyers 
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As usual, Ms. Wilhelm created a great story, with plenty of twists and turns to keep the mind guessing. However, it smacked of bias.
The character of the murdered man, Gus Marchand, is flat. He's just a bad guy. He calls himself a Christian, but he is a hateful, bigoted, controlling man who demeans his wife and beats his children. There is no other side to this man, no balance, no reason for why he is such a person. It is as though Marchand has no good feelings about anything or anyone, and everything he has ever done is bad. Towards the end of the book, Barbara Holloway blames Marchand for everything, even the murder of a woman by her lover who feared he would be exposed, because "Gus Marchand was a zealot who was determined to impose his belief system on everyone around him."
In fact, anyone clearly identified as a Christian is painted with a broad brush of bias. The wife is a weak-willed woman willing to submit to Marchand's domination of the home and abusive manner towards those in the community who don't share his beliefs. The pastor of the Baptist church Marchand attended saw Marchand as a good, honest man who never lied, a hero in the home, and at the end of his testimony in court, he appeared the buffoon as he loudly launched into a prayer to protect the daughter from the devil. Many of the townspeople, who were also members of Marchand's church in the rural Oregon town, blindly followed along with his hateful rhetoric, and were too often just stupid.
Characters not associated as Christians were real people, humans that showed compassion, felt pain and anger, had high principles but demonstrated flaws, and so on. So much was well-written: one felt ill for the hatred and abuse Alex had wrongly received over the years. Unfortunately, it just appeared to have too much bias against one group to suit my tastes.
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