Title: The #1 Lawyer

Author: James Patterson and Nancy Allen

Genre: Suspense/Legal Thriller

Publication Date: March 18, 2024

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐💫 (3.5/5)

The #1 Lawyer features Stafford Lee Penney, new character in the James Patterson publishing juggernaut. Penney is a lawyer in a small town whose reputation for winning is well-known throughout the state of Mississippi. In fact, the defense attorney has never lost a trial. 

After his latest win leaves him feeling a little off-kilter, things start going from bad to worse. A murder-suicide knocks his world off of its axis and he falls into a downward spiral that he might not have recovered from, if not for his closest friends. While Stafford Lee starts to slowly put his life back together, the hits just keep on coming.

I enjoyed the fast pace of the story, which is by now almost a standard in any James Patterson storyline. I struggled a bit staying engaged in the middle of the novel, but once the action picked back up, I was very interested to learn what exactly was going on and who was really behind all of the damage being done in Biloxi. Learning who was behind the last murder was a shocker, but it felt rushed, and was worthy of many more pages than it got. The #1 Lawyer reminds readers of the racial disparities still occurring throughout much of the country, and how differently murder victim cases can be treated based on the race of the victim. This is an important reminder that not all is equal, especially in certain states. It would have added another degree of interest to do more with this storyline in the novel; it felt like a missed opportunity that it was not explored in more detail.

Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.