Face Value: 9 (Attorney Rachel Gold Mysteries, 9) - Tapa dura

"Interesting and quirky characters. Michael Kahn is a wordsmith with some great turns of phrase, humorous descriptions and catchy dialogue. A lawyer who knows the ins and outs of the law, and the skinny on how it's done. Kahn shows the inside seam on the underbelly of real estate development, deceitful developers and their ravenous lawyers. The Flinch Factor is a great read. Pick it up, but only if you can afford to lose a night's sleep, because you won't be able to put it down."--Steve Martini on "The Flinch Factor"

"The Flinch Factor is another welcome addition to the wonderful Rachel Gold series, a clever engrossing legal thriller punctuated by sharp humor and many unexpected developments."--Scott Turow on" The Flinch Factor"

"Both tough-minded and kind, Rachel Gold struggles with two difficult cases in Kahn's enjoyable eighth mystery featuring the St. Louis attorney (after 2002's Trophy Widow). First of all, Rachel is representing residents of a comfortable middle-class neighborhood in their hopeless fight to keep a ruthless real-estate developer from bulldozing their homes to build a gated community. Second, she agrees to help the grieving sister of Nick Moran, a contractor she knew whose death the police have written off as a drug overdose. A trial lawyer himself, Kahn handles the legal details briskly. Even better, as the investigations begin to overlap, Rachel's tense skirmishes with antagonists are balanced with warm interactions with her family and friends--and zany encounters with notoriously eccentric judge Howard Flinch. Rachel may cite Raymond Chandler, but this relaxed, cheerful novel has few traces of noir."--Publishers Weekly review for The Flinch Factor

"Legal mystery aficionados will be pleased to see St. Louis attorney Rachel Gold back again after a long absence. This is the eighth outing (after Trophy Widow)."--Library Journal review for "The Flinch Factor"

""Interesting and quirky characters. Michael Kahn is a wordsmith with some great turns of phrase, humorous descriptions and catchy dialogue. A lawyer who knows the ins and outs of the law, and the skinny on how it's done. Kahn shows the inside seam on the underbelly of real estate development, deceitful developers and their ravenous lawyers. The Flinch Factor is a great read. Pick it up, but only if you can afford to lose a night's sleep, because you won't be able to put it down.""--Steve Martini on "The Flinch Factor"

""The Flinch Factor is another welcome addition to the wonderful Rachel Gold series, a clever engrossing legal thriller punctuated by sharp humor and many unexpected developments.""--Scott Turow on" The Flinch Factor"

""Both tough-minded and kind, Rachel Gold struggles with two difficult cases in Kahn's enjoyable eighth mystery featuring the St. Louis attorney (after 2002's Trophy Widow). First of all, Rachel is representing residents of a comfortable middle-class neighborhood in their hopeless fight to keep a ruthless real-estate developer from bulldozing their homes to build a gated community. Second, she agrees to help the grieving sister of Nick Moran, a contractor she knew whose death the police have written off as a drug overdose. A trial lawyer himself, Kahn handles the legal details briskly. Even better, as the investigations begin to overlap, Rachel's tense skirmishes with antagonists are balanced with warm interactions with her family and friends--and zany encounters with notoriously eccentric judge Howard Flinch. Rachel may cite Raymond Chandler, but this relaxed, cheerful novel has few traces of noir.""--Publishers Weekly review for The Flinch Factor

""Legal mystery aficionados will be pleased to see St. Louis attorney Rachel Gold back again after a long absence. This is the eighth outing (after Trophy Widow).""--Library Journal review for "The Flinch Factor"

As St. Louis attorney Rachel Gold knows firsthand, the grueling hours and demands of Big Law take their toll on young lawyers. Some turn to drugs, some quit the profession, and occasionally one quits altogether. According to the medical examiner, Sari Bashir quit for good on leaving work one Thursday night when she fell to her death from the eighth floor of the downtown garage adjacent to her firm. The police rule her death a suicide and move on. However, Stanley Plotkin, the law firm s eccentric mailroom clerk, is sure that Sari was murdered. Stanley, a genius afflicted with Asperger s Syndrome, cannot read emotions from other s facial expressions. To compensate, he studies the voluminous facial action coding system to help him navigate social situations. His mastery of that system has convinced him that Sari was not suicidal. Armed with evidence that only he can see, he turns to Rachel for help. Rachel had been close with Sari, who worked for her during law school. She also knows Stanley because their mothers are friends. When he calls Sari s death murder as Rachel drives him home from Sari s memorial service, she listens. And when Sari s grieving father pleads with Rachel to review the police file on his daughter s suicide, she reluctantly, though with consummate skill and deploying unlikely colleagues, starts an investigation that will lead into the heart of a dark criminal enterprise rife with collateral damage. Like Sari "