When his popular hip-hop artist client is blackmailed, Crang stumbles on a porn operation and an unexpected case of murder.
Crang is a smart-talking criminal lawyer who doesn’t mind chasing down unorthodox cases. That makes him just the guy to represent a famous hip-hop performer who’s on the wrong end of a blackmail scheme. It doesn’t strike Crang as a confounding case, but in no time, he finds himself confronting an organized gang that deals in porn, stock swindles, and murder. Things get so messy that Crang decides he’ll have to bend the law to make things right. It’s a dilemma that would cause other lawyers to back away, but not Crang, the nervy attorney with the fast mouth.
Jack Batten, after a brief and unhappy career as a lawyer, has been a very happy writer for many years. The author of forty books, Batten has also reviewed jazz for the Globe and Mail and, for twenty-five years, movies on CBC Radio. He currently writes the bi-weekly "Whodunit" column in the Toronto Star. He lives in Toronto.
Our smart-mouthed lawyer moves through Toronto with style and grace, with amusing stumbles and detours along the way.
Legal-thriller fans who haven’t discovered the Crang series are in for a treat.
Crang is a crime-solving lawyer with a large ego, mouth, and a propensity for unorthodox cases.
This is a fun read.
Flame’s blackmail case has lots of entertaining, smart twists as it gnarls its way to resolution. It’s Batten’s career-long confidence and ease with words and their pleasures, though, that make Keeper of the Flame such a trustworthy read, from first page to last.
Batten’s sardonic humor adds fun to this fast-paced whodunit that will keep readers guessing until the final showdown.
Vodka-sipping, jazz-loving Crang is a clever fellow who adds welcome humor to this sixth noir-light case.
Keeper of the Flame alternates between dark comedy and fast-paced drama, and is an entertaining tale that will send readers in search of previous books in the series.