The Color of Law

First,the good: Gimenez can really write a page turner. Also, his prose is great - he really makes the scenes come alive. So much so that Dallas, the city, becomes a character in the book.

The not so great - his characters have the depth and complexity of a blank sheet of paper. He basically paints them in broad strokes of black and white; there's no grey subtlety to them. So you have the selfish trophy wife who cares only for money, greedy lawyer without a conscience, crack addicted prostitute with a heart of gold. Stereotypes all of them, but what's galling are the racial stereotypes. Almost every rich white person in this book is racist. Heck every rich person in this book is white and the Hispanics are servants and the African Americans talk in gangsta and live in the projects.

It gets grating after a while, but I at least enjoyed Scott's journey from being a one dimensional greedy lawyer to a one dimensional reformed do gooder lawyer.