Lending a helping hand

Normally I rant on Thursdays, but not today. A few days ago I was asked to spread the word about an e-book for charity. If you're interested or know anyone who might be, have a look at the info:

CLASSIC LEGAL THRILLER NOW AN E-BOOK FOR CHARITY

To mark the 20th anniversary of its hardcover publication, To Speak for the Dead, Paul Levine’s bestselling legal thriller, is now available as an e-book, with all proceeds going to charity. The novel introduced Jake Lassiter, the linebacker-turned-lawyer, who is as likely to punch out a witness as cross-examine him. In To Speak for the Dead, Lassiter defends a surgeon accused of malpractice after his patient dies during routine surgery. When evidence is uncovered that the surgeon was obsessed with his patient’s wife, Lassiter suspects his client is innocent of malpractice...but guilty of murder. Add a sexy widow, a deadly drug, and a grave robbery to the stew and you have the setting for Miami’s trial of the century.

To Speak for the Dead was translated into 15 languages and adapted into an NBC World Premiere Movie in 1995. All royalties from the e-book edition will go to the Four Diamonds Fund, which supports cancer treatment and research at Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital.

“I’ve had three dear friends lose a child or a spouse to cancer in the last few years,” Levine says. “This is a cause close to my heart.”

Seven Lassiter novels were published in the 1990's. Since then, Levine has written two stand-alone thrillers including last year’s Illegal, plus the four-book Solomon vs. Lord series. Additionally, he wrote 20 episodes of the CBS military drama JAG, and co-created the Supreme Court show First Monday, starring James Garner and Joe Mantegna.

“To Speak for the Dead got me out of the courthouse, or at least on the other side of the Bar,” says Levine, a former trial lawyer. After signing his initial two-book contract with Bantam in 1988, Levine quit the practice of law and began writing full time.

“I’d read Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent and Carl Hiaasen’s Tourist Season, plus all of John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee books,” Levine says, from his Studio City, CA hillside home. “I was influenced by their rich characters and powerful themes, and in Carl’s case, his subversive humor. Those books convinced me I wanted to be a writer.”

Jake Lassiter will return in an original hardcover next year with the publication of Lassiter.

More information at http://www.paul-levine.com/content/jake-lassiter.asp