NewMexiKen became intrigued at a book-signing Friday evening in Albuquerque’s newest Borders (on the westside at Coors Bypass and Ellison). The author, Jonathan Miller, looking a little forlorn in the mostly empty bookstore, told me proudly that The Albuquerque Journal had written that he “may just be the next John Grisham.” So I bought one of the two novels displayed on the little table — Rattlesnake Lawyer — and Miller signed it for me.
The story centers around Dan Shepard, a recent and somewhat unambitious lawyer who ends up in New Mexico as the junior public defender in an fictional eastern county. As the “baby lawyer,” he is assigned the case of a minor, Jesus Villalobos — Hay-Zeus, not Jee-zus, Shepard learns. The kid, a known troublemaker is accused of battery. The charge turns into murder when the victim dies and Miller tells the story all the way through the boy’s trial as an adult.
NewMexiKen read the book in one day, finding the characterizations and the story intriguing. A good hook, in other words. I cannot be certain that Miller gets all the details right — I doubt you can find any rattlesnakes to kill in early January, for example — but most of what he describes — the people, the community, the one-mall town, the everyone-knows-everyone sense of it, the police and prosecutors — all ring true. A reader will not confuse the setting or the characters with any place other than New Mexico, that much is for sure.
Miller has a second novel — Crater County — also published last year. Rattlesnake Lawyer was good enough I’ll look for this second one, too, even if Miller isn’t around to sign it.
Miller, who’s business card says “Attorney/Author,” attended the Albuquerque Academy. Locals will appreciate the name of one incidental character — Juan Tabo.
Update: Miller emails to say he’d been at Borders eight hours and “sold 62 books, one of the most for a one day signing by an independent author in NM.”