Book description
Rep Pennyworth, a trademark and copyright lawyer, has loyally followed
his wife Melissa to Milwaukee in her quest for an assistant
professorship in English Literature at UWM. On the night before the 2008
Army-Navy Game, a midshipman is found stark naked and barely alive in
the lobby of a cheap motel near the Naval Academy in Annapolis. The
plebe's closest relatives are Ole and Lena Lindstrom, a pair of aging
but still scrappy Wisconsin political activists. They want Rep to help
them get copyright protection for an audacious package of campaign ideas
that put rich and ruthless gambling interests in the crosshairs. The
candidate they have in mind heads a think tank at UWM, where she is
exploiting the sensitive issue of domestic violence for her own
political purposes. Speaking of domestic violence, Ole and Lena have a
well-earned reputation for trading punches with each other. When Ole is
murdered, Lena becomes an instant suspect. Rep and Melissa are sure that
more than coincidence ties the midship-man's mugging to Ole Lind-strom's
murder in Milwaukee. Bowen's convoluted fifth mystery to feature Rep
and Melissa Pennyworth (after 2008's Shoot the Lawyer Twice) finds the
Milwaukee lawyer and his English professor wife pursuing a couple of
cases with a family connection. Rep is doing trademark and copyright
work for political activist Ole Lindstrom, while Melissa is
investigating the mugging of a U. S. Naval Academy midshipman, found
naked and unconscious in an Annapolis, Md., motel, who happens to be
Ole's nephew. Meanwhile, the authorities charge Ole's wife, Lena, with
attempted murder after someone-Lena claims it was an intruder who
entered their house-sneaks up on Ole and whacks him over the head with a
skillet. Ole's subsequent murder raises the stakes. Set between December
2008 and May 2009, this up-to-the-minute whodunit is filled with topical
allusions that will either amuse or irritate, depending on your
politics. The light tone and easygoing dialogue make for a quick read.
Mike Bowen, a trial lawyer practicing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is the
author of numerous mystery novels, including Screenscam (2002), which
introduced Rep and Melissa Pennyworth. Bowen has been a member and
moderator of panels at several Bouchercons and has made presentations at
numerous other mystery-related events. He wrote the entry on The
American Legal System for the Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery
Writing, and was a member of the panels that selected the winner of the
1995 Edgar Award for Best Mystery and the 1996 Edgar Award for Best
Critical or Biographical Work. Bowen graduated cum laude from Harvard
Law School in 1976. While at Harvard, he served on the Board of Editors
of the Harvard Law Review, and was a member of the winning team and was
named the best oralist in the Ames Competition (moot court). Bowen lives
with his wife, Sara Armbruster Bowen and their younger children, John,
Marguerite and James, in Fox Point, a suburb of Milwaukee.
