It seems impossible but Robert Bailey, a Huntsville attorney who came onto the legal thriller scene in 2015 with “The Professor,” has now published his tenth novel. His first protagonist taught at the UA law school and that series went to four titles. There have been other series as well. Bailey writes fast and furious.
“Rich Justice” is the third in this series. The lawyer, protagonist Jason Rich, son of an attorney, attended UA law school and worked in Huntsville. The practice was okay but he then decided to advertise and became the “Billboard Attorney” smiling down at motorists on roads all over Alabama and West Florida.
They read: “IN AN ACCIDENT? GET RICH!” Obnoxious, tacky, yes, but this kind of thing can actually happen and Jason makes ten times what his more dignified father made. His Porsche plate, by the way, is GETRICH. However, Jason is now in a bad way. He has become a serious alcoholic, had his law license suspended and caused real harm to many he loves. He has hit bottom, it would seem, but Bailey is not done with him.
Bailey opens with a scene that demonstrates his power and control. In a grocery outside Albertville we meet Tyson Cade, the meth king of Sand Mountain. In a few sentences we know he is a monster, a rapist, a psychopath and needs killing and then he is. But Jason Rich is accused of the crime. They had a history.
In a nice touch we learn that Tyson Cade, who was poisoning hundreds with his meth dealing, was regarded by many as a Robin Hood because of his generosity to the poor, of which there are many on Sand Mountain. In fact in this novel, Sand Mountain, a place of beautiful forests and waters, is a kind of otherworld, perhaps Dodge City in the nineteenth century, a lawless place. Justice there means, essentially, revenge, an eye for an eye. Everyone fights to the finish.
And there is fighting, action, a shoot-out with automatic weapons on the streets of Guntersville, in boats on the lake, whole houses blown up. Some of the mayhem is the new meth czar of Marshall County killing rivals and taking violent control of his corporate branches in Fort Payne, Stevenson, Boaz, Alder Springs, and Scottsboro. The rest involves criminals trying to prevent Rich and his allies, the fantastic Tonidandel brothers, three veterans of the 101st Airborne, from discovering Cade’s killer and a whole lot more corruption and vice. The Sand Mountain Chamber of Commerce did not approve this message.
In the past I have complained that mysteries and thrillers have become too long. This novel is 506 pages long, but it really moves, scenes fly by, and I wanted to know what happened next—and I don’t always. Just think of it as a much bigger box of chocolates.
