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    Overkill
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    Overkill
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    Overkill
    Ebook376 pages6 hours

    Overkill

    By Joseph Teller

    4.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    “I love the dry wit of Teller's work. Nelson Demille meets Turow or Grisham!”—Goodreads review of Overkill

    A Jaywalker Case: Book 5 (originally published in 2011)

    It may be a case even Jaywalker can't win. There's no question that seventeen-year-oldJeremy Estrada shot another boy point-blank blank between the eyes after a fight over agirl. Not only that, Jeremy may have the face of an angel but he can barely string threewords together, much less explain—to Jaywalker or a jury—what happened that day. Andyet, despite all those handicaps, he's determined to go to trial.

    Jaywalker has spent his entire career bending the rules, but he's always had something towork with. This time all he has is a “yesbut” defense: “Did you kill him?” “Yes, but…” Inorder to win he'll have to stretch the law to the breaking point and beyond, but even thatmay not be enough.

    Don't miss a single one of Joseph Teller's award-winning Jaywalker novels:
    The Tenth Case
    Bronx Justice
    Depraved Indifference
    Guilty as Sin
    Overkill
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarlequin MIRA
    Release dateOct 17, 2016
    ISBN9781488023798
    Unavailable
    Overkill
    Author

    Joseph Teller

    Joseph Teller was born and raised in New York City. He graduated from the College of Wooster in Ohio and the University of Michigan Law School. He returned to New York City, where he spent three years as an agent with the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (the precursor of the Drug Enforcement Administration), doing undercover work. For the next 35 years, he worked as a criminal defense attorney, representing murderers, drug dealers, thieves and at least one serial killer. When New York State restored the death penalty in the nineties, Teller was one of a select group of lawyers given special training to represent capital defendants, which he did on several occasions, including winning an acquittal for a man accused of committing a double murder. Not too long ago, Teller decided to "run from the law," and began writing fiction. He lives and writes in rural upstate New York with his wife, Sandy, an antiques dealer.

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    Reviews for Overkill

    4.5/5

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    • 5/5
      Blurb: It's a case no one can win - which is exactly why he's going to take it. Harrison J. Walker - Jaywalker, to the world - is a frayed-at-the-edges defense attorney with a ninety-percent acquittal rate, thanks to an obsessive streak a mile wide. But winning this case will take more than just dedication. Seventeen-year-old Jeremy Estrada killed another boy after a fight over a girl: shot him point-blank between the eyes. No one disputes those facts. This kid is jammed up big-time, but almost unable to help himself. He's got the face of an angel but can hardly string together three words to explain what happened that day...yet he's determined to go to trial. All they've got is a "yesbut" defense, as in: "Did you kill him?" "Yes, but...." Jaywalker is accustomed to bending the rules - this will stretch the law to the breaking point and beyond.Harrison J. Walker is sitting in one of the Supreme Court arraignment courtrooms at 100 Centre Street (New York) waiting for the sentencing of a client guilty of drug possession. His attention is drawn to the behaviour of a particular lawyer who is clearly out of his depth.The lawyer tells the judge his client is "guilty... with an explanation", and before he knows it, the lawyer, Fudderman, has been relieved of the case by the judge, and Jaywalker has been assigned.OVERKILL is an exploration of how a courtroom drama plays out, the mind games played not only by the prosecutor and the defence, but by the judge too. On the face of it there can be no defence that will save Jeremy Estrada from 25 years in gaol, but if anyone can do it Jaywalker can. Right until the end we don't know how the jury will decide.I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. On reading on the author's website that this is #4 in the Jaywalker series, I can't understand why I haven't come across the earlier titles.So if you are already a Jaywalker fan, here's one to put on your list. And if you've never read one, then this one doesn't seem a bad place to start - or, you've got time to read some of the earlier ones in the series, before OVERKILL is released in August.
    • 4/5
      Excellent legal novel (hate to lock these into a genre since the Jaywalker novels occupy a genre all their own.)

      Jeremy Estrada is guilty. No question. He walked over and shot his adversary in the head. Most attorneys would have plead Estrada out hoping for the best. Not Jaywalker who fervently believes that each defendant deserves the best defence and that there are often mitigating circumstances not readily apparent. A review of the statues reveals that “If the jury can be persuaded that the defendant acted under the influence of "extreme emotional disturbance," it may return a verdict of not guilty on a murder charge. If those words applied to anyone, Jaywalker decided, they had to apply to Jeremy Estrada. The cumulative effect of his torment at the hands of Sandro, Shorty, Diego, Victor and the rest of the Raiders had surely disturbed Jeremy, not only emotionally, but physically, as well. Could there possibly be any doubt that that disturbance had been "extreme"?”

      Jaywalker is so me . This quote describes me going to the airport: The next morning-he booked only early flights, because the equipment was always there, rather than being expected momentarily from Boston or Philadelphia-he'd set out for the airport neurotically early. He liked to allow enough time to get lost on the way, suffer not one but two blowouts, have trouble finding an empty spot in the long-term parking lot, discover that the shuttle bus wasn't running, encounter record lines at security...” On the other hand this is definitely NOT me, :”"Other lawyers prepared for trial. Jaywalker over-prepared; he ultra-super-hyper-over-prepared. He organized, interviewed, investigated, interrogated, subpoenaed, photographed, recorded and visited the crime scene. And then he did all those things over again, three or four times. He totally obsessed over every single case, no matter the simplicity or complexity of the charges, or the length of the potential sentence,"

      There’s a very humorous scene in a judge’s elevator when the female prosecutor, in the dark, has to climb on to the shoulders of Jaywalker to try and reach the exit hatch in the ceiling. As you know when you climb on a horse using the wrong foot, you might wind up facing the wrong way. Imagine the result. I won’t explain how they wound up in that elevator nor what the judge they met at the bottom was doing in high heels.

      Teller writes in an afterword that this case was based on a real one that he tried many years ago, as is true of his other books. I really like his books. Jaywalker is such a sympathetic character one cannot help but root for him despite (or perhaps, because) of his legal shenanigans. Tellers books also have a real air of authenticity sometimes lacking in other legal dramas.

      From the author’s website: “....he spent three years as an agent with the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (the precursor of the Drug Enforcement Administration), doing undercover work. For the next 35 years, he worked as a criminal defense attorney, representing murderers, drug dealers, thieves and at least one serial killer. When New York State restored the death penalty in the nineties, Teller was one of a select group of lawyers given special training to represent capital defendants, which he did on several occasions, including winning an acquittal for a man accused of committing a double murder.”