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188. Nibble & Kuhn by David Schmahmann...

October 22, 2009
nibble & kuhnAbout the book:
An unraveling law firm. An unwinnable case. An unworkable love.

Derek Dover has it all.

Derek’s up for partner at Nibble & Kuhn just as that most proper of Boston law firms comically tries to ‘rebrand’ itself for the Google era. Pompous and arbitrary, the ruling junta of partners saddles him with a high visibility lawsuit just weeks before trial. The diligent young attorney arranges things so that Maria Parma, a new associate in the firm for whom he’s fallen hard, also gets named to the case. Maria, in turn, can’t keep her hands off Derek, but it’s complicated because she’s engaged to someone else.

As Derek prepares his case on behalf of seven young victims of an industrial polluter, his anxieties about his career and his torments over Maria’s mixed messages only increase. Have his eccentric WASP superiors handed him a ‘toxic’ case to ruin his chances of becoming a partner? How can he get his opponents to settle – an outcome the presiding judge all but demands – unless his unorthodox ‘expert witnesses’ perform with enough gravitas to match that of the other side with its Harvard Medical School scientist? Will Nibble & Kuhn survive the partners’ spectacularly bad business judgments? Does it even matter to Derek, given that his looming fiasco of a trial and his indiscretions with Maria seem set to sink any chance he ever had at partnership?

Ultimately, Derek sets into motion a line of inquiry that spins events entirely out of the control of the judge, jury, and any and all attorneys.

drey's thoughts:
I liked Nibble & Kuhn. Not least for the name... There's just something about a law firm with the name of "Nibble"... *grin* Brings to mind that one joke (yeah, only one) about lawyers and the bottom of the sea...

Anyway. Never mind the bad lawyer jokes. Derek is a good guy. He's pretty smart, works hard, bills as he should... As he's coming up for partnership though, some things happen... He falls for Maria, and he gets assigned a huge case--taking over for an elevated-to-judgeship lawyer at his firm. Now, Maria. Maria is more than she seems. She's a good girl, who happens to fall for a not-quite-family-approved boy. Of course, they can hardly approve of Derek if they don't even know that he exists, right?

Nibble & Kuhn is part emotional drama, part comedy, and part satire. All told in a crisp, clean narrative by author David Schmahmann. You'll shake your head at some of the goings on at the moving-on-up law firm, wince at Derek's case, and laugh out loud at the re-branding of Nibble & Kuhn. All while rooting for Derek and Maria. Not a bad way to while away a fall evening at all...

Title: Nibble & Kuhn
Author: David Schmahmann
ISBN-10: 0897335929
ISBN-13: 9780897335928
ARC: 279 pages
Publisher: Academy Chicago Publishers, 2009

Challenges: 100+, Pub

Disclosure: My copy of Nibble & Kuhn is an ARC provided by Academy Chicago Publishers for this review.

3 comments:

Bingo said...

Like the sound of this one, Drey...and especially the title! Thanks for the great post!

bermudaonion said...

Sounds fascinating! I wonder if the author is a lawyer.

Serena said...

I have this to review as well.

Bermudaonion: I believe the author is a lawyer or was a lawyer.

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