One of the many blessings I have had in my life was being taught fifth grade by Sister Theresa Mary at St. Agatha School in Upper Arlington, Ohio. Sister loved to read, and I loved to read; and she loved mysteries. I hung on her every word (except during math class). And so I have always heard her in my ear, saying, "Don't decide that you don't like a book without reading at least one-third of it."

Sister's words came back to me within my first few pages of MURDER ONE by William Bernhardt. It's a book about a defense attorney who is representing a client accused of murder; the first few pages basically were full of rotten cops and prosecutors who would, it would seem, wipe their feet on the Constitution to secure a conviction. My initial thought was, "Oops. We're not gonna get along here." But I kept reading, simply because Bernhardt was manifesting that he had that indescribable "it," that talent which keeps the reader reading and the pages turning. I wasn't even a third of the way through the first third of MURDER ONE when I decided that I liked it very, very much.

The story centers around a murder, very graphically described early on --- you don't want to start this one over lunch at Tony Rubino's. The victim is Sgt. Joe McNaughton, a Tulsa policeman who is quite popular with his fellow officers. The apparent killer is McNaughton's girlfriend, a 19-year-old wild thang named Keri Dalcanton. The happy couple met while she was working in what is presently called a "gentleman's showbar" and subsequently carried on a torrid and imaginative relationship.

The deceased, however, had a wife who took a dim view of his extracurricular activity and demanded that he break it off. The theory is that when McNaughton tried to end the relationship Dalcanton murdered him. The local police, understandably, want to see Dalcanton hang. Dalcanton's attorney, Ben Kincaid, smells a setup. He is right. Oh, he is so right that you'll never believe it. In fact, he's so right that he doesn't believe it.

Bernhardt plays fair and does a masterful job of pacing his story right along so that before you know it you'll be done with MURDER ONE and the afternoon will be gone. Oh yeah, one more thing. This is one of the more erotic books I've read in quite a while. Don't ask why. I'm not telling. Just consider me a mark and let it go at that. Sister Theresa Mary is probably spinning like a lathe.

Bernhardt has been toiling in the literary fields for awhile now, garnering a lot of critical acclaim and slowly but surely building that all-important readership base. MURDER ONE is going to be the one that puts him over. There are at least a couple of scenes out of this book that are going to be talked about quite a bit for the next couple of months. And the ending? You'll never guess. Never!

   --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

• Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.

© Copyright 1996-2008, Bookreporter.com. All rights reserved.

Back to top.