To judge from attorney Jeffrey Stephens’ latest legal thriller, Illusions of Trust, New York City is mainly Manhattan (when not high-end rural Connecticut), and Manhattan is mainly the Upper East Side – pricey digs, tony restaurants, bespoke clothing, expensive hotels, and celebrated watering holes, such as P.J. Clarke’s on Third Avenue, menu and all. Add somewhat stock characters, good-guy buddy scenes, smart-mouth dialogue, and a twisty plot, and you have a murder mystery that seems like a nice throwback to mid-20th-century American pulps and movies - with one exception that makes it noteworthy: the novel’s timeliness. Its explanations of how white-collar crime works in relation to politics and Big Pharma, a complicated subject in the news, are the primary subject in Illusions of Trust.
Stephens shows how some well-heeled entrepreneurs game the market, with the dubious oversight of Congress and complicit friends in the media. And try to work the Food and Drug Administration to their advantage.
At such a fractious time now in our country, there’s something welcoming about a story with heroes and baddies squaring off. Where criminals are given their comeuppance come-uppance, and ethical values about laws are asserted in word and deed. Illusions of Trust is fiction, but contrived by an attorney who knows his way around courtrooms and police departments and who writes about virtue in a profession long subject to allegations of greed and corruption.
In his late thirties, sole practitioner and trial lawyer Russell Palmer (just “Palmer” please) is known around town for his “reputation,” which is for fairness, observance of the law, discretion. He sometimes takes on cases pro bono for the indigent. Even the mob knows of his trustworthiness. He clearly makes a case for the single practitioner, a rarity these days. He likes challenges, and if something speaks to him about morality, he goes with it. He does not do marital work, however. Yet into his office one day struts the gorgeous, multi-moneyed Christina Franco, wife of the infamous hedge fund mogul Edward Franco, who insists Palmer represent her in her divorce.
She’s flirtatious, fearful, desperate. She bears with her a tape she has secretly recorded on which her husband is threatening her with death by way of a top-level criminal enforcer, known by cops and clients.
Palmer’s good buddy, Robbie Whyte, an older detective Palmer once befriended and is now Palmer’s partner, is, like Palmer, skeptical of Christina’s claims, but Palmer yields to her importuning. Coincidences pile up – neither Palmer nor Whyte believes in coincidence.
A death, which opens the book – and is judged a suicide -- seems suspicious to them because the victim was about to testify before Congress about a drug application involving the Francos. It turns out the victim was also the life-long best friend of Christina’s wealthy mother, the source of most of the family’s largesse.
Add to the complications a gossip column reporter who makes moves on Palmer, eager for a scoop.
Meanwhile, the nasty criminal enforcer, whose last name is Frost and prompts Palmer to allude to a famous Robert Frost poem, is on the make, too, but – what a surprise - on Palmer’s side. The outcome may be obvious, but it’s satisfying, and the subject matter – regulating Big Pharma - may affect the way we interpret news about the drug industry.
