But Remember Their Names

May 1, 2011

Stuck-in-small-town lawyer makes the best of her time by investigating a murder.

Cynthia Jakubec, known as Jake to her colleagues, is living the life she never dreamed of, but not in a good way. A graduate of Harvard Law (like first-time author Locke, who will not let you forget it), Cynthia is packed and ready to start her plum placement at New York's larger-than-life firm Calder & Bull. More specifically, she's ready to be paid, especially because she's frequently a financial support to fiance Paul, a writer who's in Philly working through "his process." With the collapse of the financial market, Calder & Bull postpones all new hires, leaving Cynthia stuck at her father Vince's house in Pittsburgh. Clearly things are not going according to plan. Cynthia spends her days volunteering with the local Law Offices of Luis Mendoza filing predictable briefs and waiting for time to pass, until Caitlin Bradshaw walks through her door. Upper-crust Caitlin has been referred to the office by "Sam the Really Jewish Lawyer," whose shingle identifies him as Sam Schwartzchild, because her father seems to be mixed up in a bad scene. Days later, when her father's body is discovered, Cynthia feels an obligation to investigate for her young client. The investigation leads her to the enigmatic Walter Learned, who she's convinced has more of a story to tell than he lets on. Aided by Paul, Cynthia goes forth in an eager search for the truth, never realizing that her own life may be changed in the process.

Though she unleashes a few zingers, Locke's highbrow attitude puts a damper on a mystery that readers will solve long before her overeducated heroine.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

May 15, 2011
Using a pen name reminiscent of English author Hilaire Belloc, Locke adds satire and wit to her introspective look at family, love, and the law. Harvard law graduate Cynthia Jakubecs promised place with a New York firm has been deferred because of the current economic slump. Consequently, shes interning in her native Pittsburgh and living at home with her widowed father. She has two clients on her list: a convict for whom shes drafting an appeal and a teenager whose art-connoisseur father was murdered in a local history museum. After the convict is killed in prison, Cyn turns her attention to the teen, whose mother might have done in her husband because he was about to divorce her. Also requiring Cyns attention are her lonely father and her writer fianc'. Cyn, with her family, fianc', boss, clients, and colleagues, is so likable, readers will consider her an imaginary friend.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

April 18, 2011
The pseudonymous Locke's promising debut, the first in a projected series, introduces Cynthia Jakubek, a recent Harvard Law School graduate whose entry to a heavy-hitting Wall Street firm is "deferred" by the 2008 financial crisis. While waiting for her stalled legal career to resume, Cynthia returns to the blue-collar Pittsburgh neighborhood where she grew up to live with her widowed father, a tool salesman, and intern for a local defense attorney. When the body of philanthropist T. Colfax Bradshaw is found in a Pittsburgh history museum's Battle of Lexington tableau, Cynthia winds up representing Bradshaw's 17-year-old daughter, Caitlin, in a case that involves the real-life unsolved art theft from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Locke, herself a lawyer, convincingly depicts nuances of class, race, and the law. Her heroine's strong first-person voice bodes well for future Cynthia Jakubek outings.