GOOD LIEUTENANT

Attorney Sandy Moss struggles mightily to defend a client who seems determined to be indefensible.

Detective Lieutenant K.C. Trench of the LAPD is in many ways a model police investigator: resolute, methodical, and principled. His stoic personality helps keep his mind trained on facts rather than impressions. He’s not swayed by hypotheticals or conjectures. But the very traits that make him an excellent detective make him a hellish client. Accused of shooting fellow detective Wallace Schaeffer in the back of the head in Schaeffer’s apartment, Trench digs in. He refuses to speculate about how a bullet with markings that indicate it was fired by Trench’s service weapon came to be recovered from Schaeffer’s skull. Though he acknowledges Schaeffer’s shortcomings as a police officer, he won’t impugn colleagues who may or may not have abetted his misdeeds. He won’t deny that he had good reason to want Schaeffer dead, or that on at least one occasion he threatened to kill Schaeffer. And his brusque, taciturn demeanor makes it hard for Sandy to find other officers who are willing to step up to bat for Trench. Eventually, the challenges Sandy faces become the reader’s challenges, too: With such a black box for a defendant, it’s hard to generate much sympathy for his fate. Trench’s stonewalling leaves much unanswered. Bombshell reveals (and there are several) get brushed off with non-explanations such as, “It was a brief moment when I was dealing with trauma and it had nothing to do with Detective Schaeffer.” After a while, it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Det. Trench, either.

Readers will miss the trademark Copperman mayhem in this somber outing.