Review: Brian Kennedy has created a compelling courtroom suspense thriller with his first novel, Improved Lies, set among the country club elite of northern Michigan.
Defense attorney Ken Edwards has an almost impossible task. His client, businessman Ted Armbruster, is accused of murdering his wife in their home. The evidence: Ted was found standing over the body, the murder weapon, a bloody golf club, in his hands. To top it off he admitted being responsible for her death, signing a confession witnessed by his neighbor, a friend and also an lawyer. But Ted later swears to Ken that he's innocent and Ken believes him. While preparing for trial, Ken comes across a number of suspects that might have wanted to see Ted's wife dead, some with both motive and opportunity, but none seem strong enough to break the prosecution's case. Ted would rather go to jail than accept a plea bargain, so Ken has no choice but to try to persuade the jury that reasonable doubt exists and that his client should be found not guilty of murder.
The author uses golf as a metaphor for the law, and a round of golf as a metaphor for a trial. The title is a play on words: an improved lie in golf is the intentional alteration of a ball's position so to make it easier to hit. As Ken Edwards states in his closing arguments, "to improve your lie is to cheat." He then goes on to say, "It is to ignore the truth about where your ball has come to rest and to create a false reality by cheating to gain advantage." For the crime being tried, he explains, "[I]t's best not to lose sight of the tangled web that lying creates. First, the lie; then the cover-up, or improved lie; then, when that fails, murder." Read More >
You can listen to excerpts online...
"Each Saturday for 16 weeks, The Times will run an excerpt from "Improved Lies," a novel by former Bay City attorney Brian M. Kennedy. The story involves a murder and controversial trial in the fictional city of Lake Pointe, Mich."
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Every Saturday for the next 15 weeks, an excerpt from this book will be posted in The Bay City Times.
Also, Brian will be reading excerpts from this book and you can download for your listening pleasure.
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