SECOND CHAIR
A Stan Turner Mystery
By William Manchee
Top Publications - 2000
ISBN: 09666366694 - Trade Paperback
Suspense

Reviewed by: Pam Stone, MyShelf.Com

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Second Chair is the 3rd installment of Stan Turner, The 1st was UNDAUNTED and the 2nd was BRASH ENDEAVOR.

Dallas Attorney Stan Turner and his wife Rebekah are having a Christmas party with family, friends, and clients as their guests. During the party the lights go out. As Stan gets the fuse changed and the lights come back on, he hears a scream. Stan rushes to where he heard the scream come from and sees his friend and CPA Bobby Wiggins lying in the flowerbed face up. The cause of death is massive coronary caused by the fall on the ice. Marleen Wiggins decides to sue Stan for 2 million dollars because of negligence in not sanding the sidewalk.

This is only one of the cases that Stan is working on. Stan is asked to defend a young woman named Sarah Winters for killing her child, which she claims to remember nothing about.  Before the trial even gets started, Stan and his family start getting threats through the mail, the letters are cut out of magazines so they can not be traced, the first one said:

"YE DEFENDERS OF THE DEVIL BEWARE! 
DEATH WILL BE YOUR ONLY REWARD. 

REPENT BEFORE YOU FACE ETERNAL DAMNATION. 

TIME IS SHORT UNTIL THE LIVING WILL AVENGE THE DEAD.”

Signed DOOMSLAYER"

After a court appearance, Stan’s beautiful corvette has all of its tires slashed and windows broken out and a message scratched on his hood saying;  “ YE SHALL NOT ESCAPE THE VENGEANCE OF THE LORD. -- DOOMSLAYER.

Even after all of that, Stan decides to keep on defending Sarah because he believes in her innocence. After the trial starts, Stan is all most run down in the parking garage, his dog is also killed in their back yard, and his trial note book is stolen out of his office the night before a court appearance and he must recreate the note book in 8 hours before court reconvenes.

Stan Turner is a very pleasant guy and the kind of lawyer that we would all love to have in our corner. All of the characters are believable and fit into the plot.

William Manchee has done it again with  "Second Chair". I have not had the pleasure of reading the first two Stan Turner Mysteries, "Undaunted" and "Brash Endeavor" but you can bet that I will be adding them both to my private collection of books. I have had the honor of reading  “ Death Pact “ to review, and I will say that it is the best book that I have ever read so far; "Second Chair" is a close second to "Death Pact."

William Manchee can spin a tale that totally keeps you holding on and wanting more. You can bet that I will read anything that this talented author puts out.

Kudos to William Manchee for a 5 star read again!

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