Book
The Legal Limit: A Novel written by Martin Clark
About the book
Martin Clark’s most remarkable novel yet is the gripping, complex story of a murder cover-up that wreaks widespread havoc even as it redefines the concept of justice—a relentlessly entertaining saga that delves deeply into matters at once ambiguous and essential.
While Gates Hunt chose to fight his abusive father head-on, his younger brother, Mason, eventually escaped their bitter, impoverished circumstances by earning a free ride to college and law school. And while Gates became an intransigent, compulsive felon, Mason met and married the love of his life, had a spitfire daughter, and returned to his rural hometown as the commonwealth’s attorney. But Mason’s idyll is abruptly pierced by a wicked tragedy, and soon afterward his life further unravels when Gates, convinced that his brother’s legal influence should spring him from prison, attempts to force his cooperation by means of a secret they’d both sworn to take with them to the grave. And with his closest friend and staunch ally suddenly threatened by secrets of his own, Mason ultimately finds himself facing complete ruin and desperately defending everything and everyone he holds dear.
Intricately plotted and shot through with authenticity, The Legal Limit is a roller coaster of moral relevance. What should govern our actions when family loyalty challenges personal integrity, when the letter of the law defies its spirit, and when fate plays dice with our best endeavors?
- Paperback
- 402 pages
- Published June 2009
Reviews
"A deep yet playful story...Rather than bury the plot in violence, style and contrived momentum, Clark reaches for and achieves something grander...a novel of ample graces." –Allison Glock, The New York Times Book Review
"Funny, smart and Southern to the bone...[The Legal Limit] packs a wallop...it's so intoxicating that it doesn't just dazzle Clark's reviewers, it inspires them." –J. Peder Zane, The News & Observer
"An edge-of-your-seat legal thriller...[Clark's] ear for dialogue and attention to the details of his rural setting are superb...Take it to the beach and turn its pages breathlessly. Then mull over its deeper themes on that long ride home." – Doug Childers, Richmond Times-Dispatch
Other books by Martin Clark
About the author
Martin Clark’s first novel, The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living, was a New York Times Notable Book and a finalist for the Stephen Crane First Fiction Award. His second novel, Plain Heathen Mischief, prompted The Charlotte Observer to call him “a rising star in American Letters.” A circuit court judge, he lives in Stuart, VA, with his wife, Deana.
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