Baust Literary Society
Do you like to read? Would you like to discuss books with other folks? Do you have any good reads that you would like to suggest for an upcoming read of the month? Everyone is welcome! You don’t have to be a member of the church to join any of our groups.
March has two book selections. “The Law of Innocence” by Michael Connelly and “The Wine Maker” by Noah Gordon.
Book #1 – “The Law of Innocence” by Michael Connelly
On the night he celebrates a big win, defense attorney Mickey Haller is pulled over by police, who find the body of a former client in the trunk of his Lincoln. Haller is immediately charged with murder but can’t post the exorbitant $5 million bail slapped on him by a vindictive judge.
Mickey elects to represent himself and is forced to mount his defense from his jail cell in the Twin Towers Correctional Center in downtown Los Angeles. All the while he needs to look over his shoulder—as an officer of the court he is an instant target, and he makes few friends when he reveals a corruption plot within the jail.
But the bigger plot is the one against him. Haller knows he’s been framed, whether by a new enemy or an old one. As his trusted team, including his half-brother, Harry Bosch, investigates, Haller must use all his skills in the courtroom to counter the damning evidence against him.
Even if he can obtain a not-guilty verdict, Mickey understands that it won’t be enough. In order to be truly exonerated, he must find out who really committed the murder and why. That is the law of innocence.
In his highest stakes case yet, the Lincoln Lawyer fights for his life and proves again why he is “a worthy colleague of Atticus Finch . . . in the front of the pack in the legal thriller game”
Book #2 – “The Wine Maker” by Noah Gordon
Josep Alvarez is a young man in the tiny grape-growing village of Santa Eulália, in Northern Spain, where his father grows black grapes that are turned into cheap vinegar. Joseph loves the agricultural life, but he is the second son, and his father’s vineyard will be inherited by his brother Donat, the firstborn. Josep needs to keep his hands in the soil. He yearns for a job growing grapes and for an opportunity to marry Teresa Gallego.
In Madrid, an assassination plot conceived against the political leader of Spain by men of wealth and power creates a storm of intrigue that sucks into its vortex a group of innocent young farm workers in Santa Eulália. How Josep’s life is changed drastically by these events and how, ironically, they gradually turn him into an inspired vintner with an evolving vision of life is the fascinating story of The Winemaker.
The book selction for April is “The Last Kingdom” by Bernard Cornwall.
The first installment of Bernard Cornwell’s New York Times bestselling series chronicling the epic saga of the making of England, “like Game of Thrones, but real” (The Observer, London)—the basis for The Last Kingdom, the hit Netflix series.
In the middle years of the ninth century, the fierce Danes stormed onto British soil, hungry for spoils and conquest. Kingdom after kingdom fell to the ruthless invaders until but one realm remained. And suddenly the fate of all England—and the course of history—depended upon one man, one king.
From New York Times bestselling storyteller Bernard Cornwell comes a rousing epic adventure of courage, treachery, duty, devotion, majesty, love, and battle as seen through the eyes of a young warrior who straddled two worlds.
