| thrill out |
BY SCOTT ROSENBERG | A good page-turner makes you want to race to the conclusion to unwrap the mystery. By that standard, Brad Meltzer's first novel, "The Tenth Justice," is a reasonably good book. But only by that standard. Otherwise, "The Tenth Justice" -- a breezy legal thriller about a callow clerk to a U.S. Supreme Court justice who accidentally reveals the outcome of a decision and ends up in hot water -- fits the depressing mold of today's cranked-out would-be bestsellers: It's less book than movie pitch. Meltzer's hero, Ben Addison, has a sassy co-clerk named Lisa and a menagerie of wisecracking roommates straight out of "Seinfeld." (The wisecracks, though, need work: Ben jokes about gouging his eyes out; roommate blurts, "Oedipus? That'd be a good look for you.") Ben is smart enough to have made it to the top court in the land but dumb enough to reveal state secrets to a shadowy guy he knows only by the first name of Rick. Most of "The Tenth Justice" is devoted to a strategic duel between Ben and Rick. It's most interesting when Rick plays Ben's roommates off against one another. It's most humdrum when legal maneuvering gives way in the disappointing finale to standard-issue action-movie fare -- like handcuffed hostages getting roughed up, or someone crashing through a plate-glass window over a swimming pool.
The equivalent of insider-trading at the Supreme Court could make for absorbing high-level Washington drama, but Meltzer keeps his vision too narrow for that. His premise could have taken him, satisfyingly, in the direction of a classic Allen Drury power struggle. Instead he's content in the diminished world of John Grisham, in which all that's at stake is a man's career.
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