Shoveling Smoke

September 22, 2003
A Houston lawyer's attempt to escape the rat race backfires with hilarious results in Davis's thoroughly enjoyable debut crime novel. Sardonic Clay Parker's new job in the tiny East Texas town of Jenks gets off to a bumpy start when he has to fetch one of his two bosses, Gill Stroud, from jail (where he's been sleeping off a whopping bender) and help him sober up in time to win a murder trial. His next assignment is even tougher: defending sleazy Bevo Rasmussen (Parker calls him a "shady little buccaneer," but takes note of the razor hidden in his sock), who's accused of setting fire to a barn full of prized thoroughbreds for the insurance money. Romance enters the picture when Parker falls for a powerful, sexy court clerk named Sally Dean, whose father happens to be a horse-trading kingpin with links to Rasmussen and tentacles extending into virtually every major criminal enterprise in the county. As Parker works feverishly to prepare for trial, his efforts are hindered by his rambunctious, bumbling partners: Stroud can't lay off the juice, and his partner, Hardwick Chandler, shows an equal passion for womanizing. Davis uses his quirky characters to capture the seat-of-the-pants flavor of law in a Texas backwater, and the charming but somewhat kinky romance between Parker and Dean works as a nice counterpoint to the legal shenanigans. The going's a little rough in spots, but Parker is an engaging protagonist whose humor and savvy easily carry the inaugural volume of this promising series.