Rating: 
Summary: BERNHARDT JUST KEEPS GETTING BETTER
Review: A practicing attorney in Tulsa, Bernhardt has added Silent Justice to his well received series beginning with Primary Justice through the more recent Dark Justice . To date, this series has won him a legion of fans and garnered the Oklahoma Book Award.With Silent Justice Bernhardt continues the story of almost-too-honest-and-courageous-to-be-true lawyer Ben Kincaid. This time, although every nerve ending urges him to back off, Ben takes on a powerful manufacturing company that has contaminated the city's water supply by dumping toxic waste. Ben's stance puts him head to head with Tulsa's most powerful law firm and his former employer, Raven, Tucker & Tubb. A hater of civil defense "because there's nothing civil about it" Ben prepares to take on the city's legal and financial structures as well as a judge who leans toward big business. He has been moved by the plight of the middle class families whose children died dreadful deaths due to the contaminated water. "I think we're doing the right thing here. Not the smart thing," Ben declares. "Certainly not the safe thing. But the right thing." The riveting courtroom drama is set against a string of brutal murders perpetrated by a fiend gone amok. Bernhardt takes no chances here as he injects suspenseful subplots, which serve to propel the non-stop action. There are plenty of thrills in Silent Justice for those who like their reading spattered with blood and smattered with legalese. - Gail Cooke
Rating:
Summary: BERNHARDT JUST KEEPS GETTING BETTER
Review: A practicing attorney in Tulsa, Bernhardt has added Silent Justice to his well received series beginning with Primary Justice. To date, this series has won him a legion of fans and garnered the Oklahoma Book Award. With Silent Justice Bernhardt continues the story of almost-too-honest-and-courageous-to-be-true lawyer Ben Kincaid. This time, although every nerve ending urges him to back off, Ben takes on a powerful manufacturing company that has contaminated the city's water supply by dumping toxic waste. Ben's stance puts him head to head with Tulsa's most powerful law firm and his former employer, Raven, Tucker & Tubb. A hater of civil defense "because there's nothing civil about it" Ben prepares to take on the city's legal and financial structures as well as a judge who leans toward big business. He has been moved by the plight of the middle class families whose children died dreadful deaths due to the contaminated water. "I think we're doing the right thing here. Not the smart thing," Ben declares. "Certainly not the safe thing. But the right thing." The riveting courtroom drama is set against a string of brutal murders perpetrated by a fiend gone amok. Bernhardt takes no chances here as he injects suspenseful subplots, which serve to propel the non-stop action. There are plenty of thrills in Silent Justice for those who like their reading spattered with blood and smattered with legalese. - Gail Cooke
Rating:
Summary: BERNHARDT JUST KEEPS GETTING BETTER
Review: A practicing attorney in Tulsa, Bernhardt has added Silent Justice to his well received series beginning with Primary Justice. To date, this series has won him a legion of fans and garnered the Oklahoma Book Award. With Silent Justice Bernhardt continues the story of almost-too-honest-and-courageous-to-be-true lawyer Ben Kincaid. This time, although every nerve ending urges him to back off, Ben takes on a powerful manufacturing company that has contaminated the city's water supply by dumping toxic waste. Ben's stance puts him head to head with Tulsa's most powerful law firm and his former employer, Raven, Tucker & Tubb. A hater of civil defense "because there's nothing civil about it" Ben prepares to take on the city's legal and financial structures as well as a judge who leans toward big business. He has been moved by the plight of the middle class families whose children died dreadful deaths due to the contaminated water. "I think we're doing the right thing here. Not the smart thing," Ben declares. "Certainly not the safe thing. But the right thing." The riveting courtroom drama is set against a string of brutal murders perpetrated by a fiend gone amok. Bernhardt takes no chances here as he injects suspenseful subplots, which serve to propel the non-stop action. There are plenty of thrills in Silent Justice for those who like their reading spattered with blood and smattered with legalese. - Gail Cooke
Rating:
Summary: Toxic Dumping and a Serial Killer too
Review: A twelve year old child dies from acute lymphocytic leukemia and he's not the first in the small town of Blackwood, Oklahoma. Eleven other children between the ages of eight and fifteen have recently died of the disease. Blaylock Industrial Machinery has been doing a little toxic dumpin and Attorney Ben Kincaid, champion of the underdog, is seeking justice for the victims. This is almost a suicide case for Ben as he's a sole practioner up against a well heeled, powerful law firm.
Then there is the small matter of the serial killer who appears to be targeting Blaylock employees. So you can see there is room for plenty of suspense in this book and Mr. Bernhardt does not disappoint or shrirk his writer's duties. He delivers well rounded characters, a first-rate plot and plenty of action in this gem of a story that showcases Mr. Bernhardt's great trial writing.
Rating:
Summary: A Terrific Thriller
Review: Blaylock Industrial Machinery Corporation has to dispose of chemical waste, but they want to save money, so they bury some of their toxins in leaky drums that contaminate the groundwater. Children get leukemia, many die as did Cecily Elkins' son. When she learns about Blaylock's illegal dumping, she contacts other parents who have lost children. They want to sue and hire Ben Kincaid to take their case even as a serial killer is torturing and killing Blaylock employees. Who is the killer? Why is killing? This is a five star legal thriller that I couldn't put down. Reviewed by Vesta Irene
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Didn't keep my interest. Found it hard to finish. Maybe I was spoiled by recently reading some old Grisham books. This is no comparison.
Rating:
Summary: Perhaps Bernhardt's Best Yet
Review: Eleven children in a small town near Tulsa have died of leukemia, and the parents are convinced it is because a factory has been illegally dumping poisonous industrial waste where it seeps into the well that provides the water supply to the homes of the children who have died. Ben takes the case after nearly every other lawyer in town has refused to touch it. Ben is up against his former law firm, the biggest and richest in town, and they will stop at nothing to defeat him. They manage to keep Ben from finding out about the one piece of evidence that would really make his case. The judge is a great admirer of the leading attorney for the defense, and he blatantly favors them. Meanwhile, Ben's landlady is dying and knows it, and she begs to see her estranged son. Jones locates him in New York, but the son flatly refuses to have anything to do with his mother, even on her deathbed. There is also a series of grisly murders connected with the case, but the connection is not apparant. Also, Christina graduates from law school. Not only is the plot complex and full of action and surprises, but the main characters, Ben and Christina, are interesting and sympathetic characters, people you would like to have as neighbors and friends. Every book in the series leaves one eager for the next episode in their lives.
Rating: 
Summary: JUST DIDN'T CUT IT!!!!
Review: I have read all the series in order, this being number nine. I really liked the first ones much better. Silent Justice really has two stories at the same time. Ben has a class action suit against a big company for dumping chemicals into drinking water and therefore killing children. Meanwhile, his friend, Mike Morell is after a person who is killing people for no apparent reason. What is the killer looking for? What is the merchandise? I nearly went to sleep reading page after page of much to complicated words for my small brain understand during the trial. I really like Ben, Christina McCall, Jones, Loving and Mike. Maybe its time for me to change instead of thinking Bernhardt will go back to writing like he did earlier. It is sort of a surprise ending but I thought I would read forever to get to that part. Sorry, but the writer has done better.
Rating:
Summary: Held my interest, but the plot has some weaknesses.
Review: I have read most of the Bernhardt series of "Justice" books, featuring Ben Kincaid, the Tulsa, Oklahoma attorney. Ben is a smart but nebbishy lawyer who is a soft-touch for a sob story and is so non-materialistic that it is hard to believe that he is a lawyer at all. In this novel, Bernhardt admits to borrowing quite a bit from Jonathan Harr's excellent non-fiction work, "A Civil Action" (which was later made into a movie starring John Travolta). "A Civil Action" is a superb book that deals with the long, drawn out litigation instigated by bereaved parents whose children died of cancer in Woburn, Massachusetts. With the help of a cocky attorney, the parents filed suit against the owners of a factory whose workers allegedly dumped toxic waste into the town's water supply. Bernhardt oversimplifies a case that was complex in the extreme. By fictionalizing the Woburn, Massachusetts case, Bernhardt attempts to explain litigation that was so convoluted that the real-life jury had difficulty understanding the geological testimony presented to it. I think that to use this real-life case as the subject of a legal thriller is to cheapen a truly tragic event. Admittedly, the book does have some entertainment value. There are some thrills, some violence (a little overdone), and some interesting twists and turns. Finally the various subplots come together at the end. The problem is that Bernhardt ties up the subplots a little too frantically and the loose ends come together in a way that is rather unbelievable. In addition, the wonderful character, Christina, has little to do in this book. I missed Christina's sassiness which has livened up Bernhardt's books in the past. Ben, too, comes across in "Silent Justice" as more of a cardboard character than a flesh and blood human being. All in all, not the worst in the series, but far from the best.
Rating:
Summary: As Good As It Gets
Review: If you like legal thrillers, this is your meat. Grisham only wishes he could write this well. William Bernhardt is one author (and there aren't all that many of them) who seems to improve his writing every time out. He was damn good to start with. I'll keep reading and enjoying his Bem Kincaid adventures as long as he keeps writing them. Thanks, Bill, and hurry up with your next book.
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