D.W. Buffa

Critical Praise:

STAR WITNESS

"Attorney Buffa spins some of the best, the toughest legal conundrums on the market. Joseph Antonelli, Portland lawyer, is diamond-hard and yet fully human, a man focused on the task rather than on himself and blessed with compassion and insight as well as relentless devotion to the task at hand: defending clients. With a nod to celebrity courtroom cases, Buffa escapes the obvious traps and goes for the heart-and the throat-when summoned from an idyll in San Francisco/Sausalito to Hollywood where famed movie studio mogul Stanley Roth is about to arrested for the murder of his screenstar wife. Mary Margaret Flanders (written in part with Marilyn Monroe in mind) has been found floating in the family pool. With security at their estate so good, Roth is the one to have done her per the cops. But Antonelli, struggling to distinguish what is real and what is image, what is truth and what is spin in a celluloid/celebrity universe, sets up a dramatic courtroom rebuff. Too bad he couldn't control the outcome in the inevitable movie that followed...."

—Barbara Peters (Poisoned Pen, Scottsdale, AZ)

THE PROSECUTION

"Buffa's spare observation, crackling dialogue, and shadowy circle of criminals, lawyers, and lovers keep you riveted."

—Entertainment Weekly

"All the same, the authentic courtroom scenes leave one with the sense that Mr. Buffa, who for 10 years worked in Oregon as a defense lawyer, has more to say about the law than the usual lawyer turned novelist.... More important, the novel's exploration of the theme of lying lends it a resonance that continues to play on the reader's mind."

—EThe New York Times

THE DEFENSE

"...an ingenious, riveting legal thriller.... a fast-moving, thoroughly gripping entertainment that has the moral and emotional authority of a literary novel."

—Publishers Weekly

"...a great thriller, full of twists and ideas and good writing."

—San Jose Mercury News

"...a startling conclusion that transforms it into a more thought-provoking book.... Buffa (a criminal lawyer himself) not only spins a good plot but also wrestles with fundamental ethical questions about lawyering.... [should be] required law-school reading."

—Mademoiselle

"THE DEFENSE is an excellent legal thriller with a well-thought-out plot and believable characters. But it also scores as a novel of cold, calculating revenge perpetrated by an intelligence so formidable it goes unrecognized until too late....provides an intelligent critique of the criminal justice system....asks questions that linger after the plot twists are revealed."

—USA Today

"...a gripping courtroom drama....it leaves you wanting to go back to the beginning and read it all over again....gives us a glimpse of the horror that his character Rifkin thinks Nietzche must have foreseen in his twilight madness."

—The New York Times

© Copyright 1996-2009, Bookreporter.com. All rights reserved.

Back to top.