Beach Road

by James Patterson, Peter de Jonge Narrated by Billy Baldwin, Orlagh Cassidy, Erik Bergmann, Rodney Gardiner, Rayme Cornell, Charles Turner, Richard Ferrone

Overview

Tom Dunleavy has a one-man law firm in America's wealthiest resort town: legendary East Hampton. But his job barely keeps him in paper clips. His clients make a living serving the rich. The billionaires and celebrities swarming the beaches already have lawyers on their payroll.Very Expensive
Then a friend of Tom's is arrested for a triple murder near a movie star's mansion. Tom knows in his gut that Dante Halleyville is innocent. Dante asks him to represent him in what could be the Trial of the Century.

Very Exclusive
Tom recruits Manhattan superlawyer Kate Costello to help. She's a tough hire, because Kate is his ex-girlfriend, but she agrees. In their search to find who really executed three locals, Tom orchestrates a series of revelations to expose the killer, and what emerges is staggering.

Very Explosive
The final scenes of this audiobook unveil a truth that will leave readers gasping in shock. Written with the precision that has made James Patterson "a master of his genre" (USA Today), Beach Road is his wildest, most thrilling novel ever.

Editorial Reviews

The life of Montauk lawyer Tom Dunleavy bears no resemblance to those of his TV counterparts. Day after day, he scrapes by with routine real estate closings; nothing more exciting ever comes his way. Then one day, out of the blue, he is hired to defend a local hero accused of a triple homicide. Almost immediately, this honest advocate realizes that his hapless client is only a fall guy, but proving it involves dangerous liaisons with people privy to sordid secrets of the Hamptons rich. To solve the case, Dunleavy reconnects with former girlfriend and hotshot attorney Kate Costello. James Patterson in full flight.

Publishers Weekly

Bestseller Patterson shows signs of having gone to the well too often in this slapdash collaboration with de Jonge, his coauthor on The Beach House (2002). Tom Dunleavy, a former professional basketball player and local East Hampton legend, is getting by as an underworked and unmotivated attorney. His sports glory days and his one true love are long in the past, but he gets second chances at personal and professional redemption when three locals are gunned down, apparently in the aftermath of racial tensions arising from a heated pickup game of hoops. The police seize on Dante Halleyville, the country's best high school star, as their suspect, and Dunleavy must dust off his old courtroom skills and enlist his lost love, Kate Costello, as his partner. Patterson readers know to expect a surprise ending, but he leaves too few possibilities for many to be genuinely fooled. Fans can only hope that Patterson soon returns to the level he achieved with his Alex Cross series. (May) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

A struggling Montauk lawyer agrees to defend a local man accused of murdering several flashy Hamptons types and finds himself in the midst of another trial of the century. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Times (London)

The novel has a rich characterization often absent in legal potboilers…Anyone who likes to relax with a Grisham novel will enjoy this superior story.”

Daily Telegraph (Sydney)

A clever and powerful mystery-thriller.”

Sunshine Coast Daily (Maroochydore

With a fast-moving plot, a dose of courtroom drama, and a dash of romance, James Patterson’s latest book has all the ingredients for a great Sunday read. Patterson has delivered another killer thriller.”

Booklist

Gripping…The novel races toward a conclusion so shocking that even longtime Patterson devotees won’t see it coming.”

AUG/SEP 06 - AudioFile

Here's a book you may want to take to the beach this summer. Former basketball star turned lawyer Tom Dunleavy is asked to represent a teenaged athlete accused of murdering four young men. With his former lover, also a lawyer, Dunleavy sets out to present a formidable defense. You'll never guess whodunit because the answer lacks credibility. Nonetheless, the cast is so uniformly proficient that the story moves along in spite of the inept plot. Of singular note is Billy Baldwin's characterization of Dunleavy. One wonders why Richard Ferrone's talents and unique voice are wasted on announcing the chapters and characters. A.L.H. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173628329
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	05/01/2006
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Beach Road

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By James Patterson Peter de Jonge

Little, Brown

Copyright © 2006 James Patterson
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-316-16711-8

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Chapter One

Nikki Robinson

SEVENTEEN AND CRIMINALLY CUTE, Nikki Robinson sulks through the sultry afternoon trying to keep from staring at her useless shocking-pink cell phone. She hasn't heard from Feifer in three days and is getting the awful feeling she's already been dumped and just hasn't been told yet.

So when Nikki's cell rings while she's waiting in line to pay for her drink at Kwik Mart, her heart goes off with it. She grabs for the phone so fast her best friend, Rowena, behind the counter flashes her a disapproving look that says, "Chill, girl."

Rowena is all about maintaining dignity under romantic duress, and as usual, she's right. It's only Maidstone Interiors calling about a cleaning job for Nikki out in Montauk.

Nikki has been working for Maidstone all summer and likes it okay, but the thing about Maidstone is that she never knows where they're going to send her.

It takes Nikki forty minutes to drive from Kings Highway in Bridgehampton to Montauk, and another five to find the hilly neighborhood perched just above Route 27 where all the streets are named for dead presidents-and not the recent ones, the ones who have been dead awhile.

Forty-one Monroe is neither a mansion nor a dump, but somewhere in between, and as soon as she gets through the door,she sees it's nothing catastrophic and was probably rented by a couple, maybe a small family.

Besides the steady money, what Nikki likes best about this job is that she's alone. She may be cleaning white folks' houses, but at least they aren't standing over her shoulder, watching and supervising her every move. Plus she can dress how she wants, and so she pulls off her jeans and T-shirt, revealing a skimpy two-piece bathing suit underneath. She puts on her headphones and some R. Kelly, and gets busy.

Nikki starts with the ground-floor bedroom. She gathers the dirty towels and strips the sheets, balls them up in a giant damp pile, and wrestles it down the steep basement staircase. She quickly gets the first load of wash running, then races all the way up to the second floor, and by now her dark skin, which she sometimes loves and sometimes hates, is shimmering.

When she reaches the landing, there's a funky smell in the air, as if someone's been burning incense or, now that she gets a better whiff, smoking reefer.

That's nothing too out of the ordinary. Renters can be stoners too.

But when Nikki swings open the door to the master bedroom, her heart jumps into her mouth, and yet somehow she manages to scream and to think, The white devil.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Beach Road by James Patterson Peter de Jonge Copyright © 2006 by James Patterson . Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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