Breach of Trust

by D.W. Buffa

Book Overview

Attorney Joseph Antonelli dives into a case of White House intrigue, intimacies not forgotten, and suspicions dark and deep in this legal thriller in the Edgar Award-nominated series called adroit and often elegant.--Los Angeles Times

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0399151907
• ISBN13: 9780399151903
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Putnam Adult
• Length: 371 Pages
• Weight: 1.38 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.3" x 9.3"
• Age Range: 14 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 8 and higher

Customer Reviews

"Antonelli...he's likable, lovable & a man for all seasons"

"Breach of Trust", Dudley W. Buffa, New York, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2004 ISBN 0-399-15190-7, HC, 371 pp. & 6.25" x 6.25" In this 6th. Joseph Antonelli novel, Buffa has the protagonist lawyer in NY at Harvard Law School class reunion, per request of classmate Thomas Browning, now Vice President. He's asked to be defense lawyer for expected indictment of their classmate James Haviland upon re-opening of accidental fall of Ann Malreaux, 2nd year law school classmate at Christmas Eve party several decades past. The story line involves mutiny in White House ranks of President Walker & VP Browning, the latter seeking his own nomination & who alludes to a conspiracy to oust him in a scandal related to Annie's death. Antonelli does his homework, contacts everyone associate with Annie & enjoys assistance & sizzling romance from Gisela Hoffman, a young reporter in midst of divorce. Demonstrated via idiosyncracies of prosecutor Caminetti & Judge Charles Scarborough, is the fierce trial Antonelli is told that must be won at all costs. We are shown the relationship of Joanna van Renaessler, Antonelli's old flame, but now wife of VP Browning -- she has kept secrets. The plot unfolds with momentum & just when you think its over, the underlying intrigues are at last revealed: -- Antonelli is affable & crackerjack as trial lawyer but he's unprepared to the like of young Gisela. In this novel, the protagonist Antonelli really shines -- likable, lovable & a man for all seasons. This book is not to be missed.

Trust Buffa - He Delivers

D.W. Buffa has written several very good novels. In this one, he has written a classic. It has a melange of elements. A murder trial - political intrigue at the highest levels - romance - mystery - danger and suspense. All stirred together along with some very interesting political philosophy and social commentary it becomes a very difficult book to put down and one you will reflect on after the last page is turned.No need to recount the plot as others have already done so. There are many interesting characters and some lively trial scenes as Joseph Antonelli defends an old friend charged with a decades old murder. But, it is the larger story that is being told that will hold your interest and what makes this such a memorable book.

A Spellbinding, Haunting Work --- A Future Classic

My wife and I had gone to bed for the evening, and as is my occasional wont, I picked up a new book to begin reading. The book was BREACH OF TRUST by D.W. Buffa. I read a page, set the book down, and turned off the light. My wife asked me if I was going to read it. No, I replied, not now. I told her that I could tell just by reading the first page that if I continued, I'd be up all night reading and thinking, and that this book deserved better than that.Reading all night is not a bad thing. I do it often enough. But you can't do it with Buffa's work. Well, like so many things, you can, but you shouldn't. You'll miss something. Even if you read Buffa when you are wide awake and fully alert, you have to read him carefully. Every word, every nuance, matters. Buffa writes the type of work that, no matter how carefully read, demands and deserves an immediate second reading in order to fully appreciate what has just been experienced. There is no better --- no finer --- example of this proposition than BREACH OF TRUST, Buffa's latest novel featuring criminal defense attorney Joseph Antonelli.Buffa may well be our greatest writer of contemporary fiction (there is one other who is his equal, a man who labors in the same genre and who is as good as Buffa for entirely different reasons --- but this is Buffa's review). I don't keep this to myself; when I occasionally take my ungrateful and unappreciative six-year old daughter to a neighborhood playground and see a child's mother paging through a new book by, well, let's say by a better-known writer of courtroom dramas, I have been inclined to walk up and without further introduction politely suggest that her time might be better served by reading one of Buffa's works. Responses vary from a polite nod and a written reminder to a hurried roundup of the offspring to head home and begin preparing supper. I shouldn't do it, but I can't help it. And here is one reason. During the first half or so of the 20th century, there were a number of mass circulation magazines that published short stories by the masters (Hemingway, Fitzgerald). Some of these magazines still exist, a shadow of their former glory, coasting on their prior reputations.There is a chapter in BREACH OF TRUST that could stand alone as a short story published in any one of those magazines during their heyday, and that would not be eclipsed by the company it would be keeping but would cast a long, deep shadow all its own. I won't tell you which chapter; I'm going to make you read BREACH OF TRUST to do that. It deals though with Antonelli's reminiscence of a party that took place during one of his law school summers, when he met a woman with whom he fell in love, or something close to it. It is one of the finest pieces of short fiction I have read in thirty years. Yet it is not as good as the whole of BREACH OF TRUST.So what is the whole of BREACH OF TRUST? It, of course, concerns Antonelli, the best-known criminal defense attorney in the country, grud

"Trust" Buffa when it comes to legal trillers

"Breach of Trust" is an excellent example of both a writer's and a character's progression. Although D.W.Buffa set himself a difficult benchmark with his best novel, "The Judgment," this latest effort comes close to the superior effort that that one was. Set in New York and DC, Buffa shows that he's not just a left coast man who can only spin a tale of Portland, San Francisco or LA. The continuing introspections of his main character, trial lawyer Joseph Antonelli, as that character has aged through six novels (as well as becoming an extremely famous trial lawyer) are a welcome addition to the usual run-of-the-mill courtroom thriller. Antonelli's on-going problems in relations with the women who enter his life continue to be chronicled, too. Will Antonelli ever find true love? Maybe the seventh novel will be lucky for him. If Buffa keeps on writing such intriguing plots with their appropriate twists, his seventh effort is worth looking forward to for both his readers and Antonelli.

fabulous legal thriller

Harvard Law School graduate Joseph Antonelli agrees to come back for a reunion only because his old roommate Thomas Browning, the Vice President of the United States, asked him to attend as a favor. At the reception, Thomas says glowing, but untrue things about Antonelli. Afterward Antonelli meets Jimmy Haviland, who blames Thomas for the death of another student, Annie Malreaux who fell to her death from the eighth floor of Manhattan's Plaza Hotel. The police ruled it an accident.Later that night Antonelli meets Browning who asks for his help. Apparently, the death of Annie is being reopened as a witness has surfaced claiming murder occurred. Browning feels his run for the Oval office could die with the scandal that he was part of a cover-up even if it proves false later. He wants Antonelli, the best defense attorney in the country, to defend whoever is accused of the homicide. Antonelli wants to say no, but agrees to handle the case especially since the accused is Jimmy, a person who never really recovered from the death of his beloved Annie.Fans of legal thrillers will take immense delight from the wonderful BREACH OF TRUST. The story line is loaded with action in and out of the courtroom and the White House. The cast is fabulous and is led by a remarkable caring hero though much of the show is stolen by the charismatic VP. Readers will never guess who did what to who as the ending is so buffed.Harriet Klausner