Juror Number Eleven

Mairead O'Clare Legal Mystery #2

by Terry Devane

After successfully defending Big Ben Friedman, a childhood friend of her partner, Sheldon Gold, on a murder charge, attorney Mairead O'Clare receives a mysterious summons from Juror Number Eleven on the case and when she arrives at Conchita Balaguer's home, she finds the woman's body, and once again Friedman is the prime suspect in the crime. 17,500 first printing.

Genres: Fiction

311 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Jeremiah Healy, a graduate of Rutgers College and Harvard Law School, was a professor at the New England School of Law for eighteen years. He is the creator of the John Francis Cuddy private-investigator series and (under the pseudonym "Terry Devane") the Mairead O’Clare legal-thriller series, both set primarily in Boston.

Healy has written eighteen novels and over sixty short stories, fifteen of which works have won or been nominated for the Shamus Award. Healy's later Cuddy novels include RESCUE, INVASION OF PRIVACY, THE ONLY GOOD LAWYER, and SPIRAL. His O'Clare books from Putnam/Berkley are UNCOMMON JUSTICE, JUROR NUMBER ELEVEN, and A STAIN UPON THE ROBE, the last optioned for feature film in December, 2003.

A past Awards Chair for the Shamus, Healy also served as President of Private Eye Writers of America for two years. In October, 2000, he was elected President of International Association of Crime Writers ("IACW"). Books of his have been translated into French, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, and German. Healy has spoken about mysteries at the Smithsonian Institution's Literature Series, The Boston Globe Book Festival, the Sorbonne in Paris, and at conferences in England, Canada, Spain, Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic. He was toastmaster at the 1996 World Mystery Convention (Bouchercon) and was the American Guest of Honour at Bouchercon 2004 in Toronto.

Series:
* Mairead O'Clare Legal Mystery

Reviews

[LJ · Rating 2 out of 5]

JUROR NUMBER ELEVEN – Okay
Terry Devane – 2nd in series
Criminal defense attorneys Sheldon Gold and Mairead O'Clare successfully get Boston gangster Big Ben Friedman acquitted of murder. However, when Juror Number Eleven is found dead in her home after she places an urgent call for help to O'Clare, and it’s found she just deposited $10,000 cash, Ben is suspected of jury tampering and murder.

The book was okay, but found I had trouble keeping the characters straight. It was clear one needed to have read the first book. The plot was thin, the premise implausible and the time frame to trial rather unbelievable. And the constant voice of Mairead’s Mother Superior was annoying in the extreme. I finished it, but it was a plod.

[Clewis53 · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good yarn, with some clunky prose.

[Rd · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is like someone did a keyword search of every racial, gender, ethnic flavor they could find, and made sure it was ALL mentioned in every character if not on every page. I'm surprised to have gotten as far as I did before it all overwhelmed any storyline that might have actually been here.

In addition, the little sidebar comments allegedly from some nun in the main character's past were just ridiculous and wearying. And what's up with the hockey stuff? What does that have to do with anything???

And while I'm at it, if you can't see the problem with a black woman going into an office, hearing a white receptionist with a southern accent and immediately deciding that person probably doesn't like "POC," then you should probably stop writing. That is the very definition of reverse racism.

Pathetic.

[Len White · Rating 4 out of 5]

This will be the last thing I'll read by Terry Devane, aka Jeremiah Healy. I've read all of his novels and was saddened to discover that he had ended his life at the age of 66. While this series is not up to par with the Cuddy books, I'll still rate it with 4 stars due to my appreciation of his overall body of work.
Except for one thing. There's a gigantic loose end in the plot that involves a character lying on the stand for no reason that I can figure out. I would have thought that the issue would possibly be addressed in the future of the series but, having read the third and last novel already, I know that it was not addressed.

[Stacia · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was good, but just didn't grab my attention.

[Sandi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in Boston this legal series has a great ensemble cast. In this entry Sheldon Gold and Mairead O'Clare defend an old school chum of Sheldon's in a hit and run case but one of the jurors keeps giving Mairead strange looks during the trail.