I had this in my wish list when it went on sale. And there I was in need of a break from nonfiction with crime fiction or true crime. I caved and it turned out longer than I expected.  

The Southern Lawyer 
by Peter O’Mahoney / 2021
Read by Bradford Hastings; 8h 34m
Rating: B (due to narration) / legal thriller 
(#1 in  Joe Hennessy series)

I think it was the narration which messed it up for me although the plot was a bit too generally gritty in places for my usual tastes.  The narration had an overpowering Southern accent.  I’ve listened to lots of novels which are set in the South and I don’t recall any of them having this problem. The protagonist, Joe Hennessy a lawyer turned vineyard keeper who returns to lawyering in Charleston, SC when too many droughts put his acreage in financial jeopardy. He takes a case from a very shady character as well as a young woman who has been arrested for murdering her boyfriend.  

On their own, the plots are pretty good and nicely developed, but the characters are mediocre. I never could care about any of them and I don’t usually consider that. The courtroom drama is very nicely done. I just had to lower the rating by a point due to that accent problem.