Dirty Blonde by Lisa Scottoline
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"'Against the door,' Cate heard herself say.
'Whatever,' he murmured , easing her back against the door in the dark hallway. She was on fire, and his hands grabbed at her skirt, pushing it up. He moaned when he felt bare skin."

In my previous life of a reader interested only in mystery and crime novels I had read several legal thrillers by Lisa Scottoline, in the Rosato & DiNunzio series. Fortunately, Dirty Blonde (2006), the book that I selected to refresh my acquaintance with the author, is a standalone novel. Unfortunately, even if I am marginally recommending it, I do not like the novel much. The clever setup and the first 80 or so pages are the best things about the book.

We meet judge Cate Fante as she is attending a party celebrating her appointment to the district court. When the party is over Judge Fante drives to a bar, meets a guy, and lets him touch her intimately. We soon learn that in her free time Judge Cate solicits casual sex in seedy bars. The double entendre of the title works really well! Ms. Fante is a highly qualified and conscientious judge, who cares not only about the law but also about so-called justice (Ms. Scottoline knows pretty well that these two often have very little in common). She also helps her best friend raise an autistic son to whom she is a godmother.

Judge Fante begins her district court career by presiding over a trial where the plaintiff, a lawyer named Marz, sues a Hollywood producer for stealing his idea of a very successful TV show. Judge Fante's verdict follows the law but not her idea of justice. The outcome of the trial sets up one thread of the plot: the producer is soon killed and Mr. Marz apparently commits suicide. Another thread is preposterous: Judge Fante learns that a TV series is in preparation based on her work as a judge and detailing her sexual escapades. At that point the novel loses any semblance of plausibility and devolves into a TV-show-like silliness, with ridiculous twists and turns.

We have to endure inanities like Cate's playing a detective, good cops arresting good cops, FBI involvement, shenanigans in the court building, etc. Many pages in the later part of the book are just pure space filler that does not serve any purpose in characterization or advancement of the plot. Probably the publisher has an acceptable range of the number of pages and Ms. Scottoline was a bit short. We also have a syrupy happy ending, quite implausible considering the plot.

Other than the beginning and the setup I like the well-written and touching passage when Judge Fante visits her mother's grave and the rather incongruous but interesting reference to Centralia, a coal-mining town in north-eastern Pennsylvania. Stories about the horrendous underground mine fire and the plight of the anthracite coal miners suffering from the black lung disease are moving but all that is not enough to like the novel much.

Two and a half stars.


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