Guilt by Association is the first novel from American attorney and legal talking head Marcia Clark.  Legal names don’t come much bigger than Clark, who was chief prosecutor during the OJ Simpson trial, and with Guilt by Association, she travels the well-trodden path between practicing law and writing sharp crime thrillers.

This particular thriller introduces a new heroine, Deputy DA Rachel Knight, a loyal and tenacious prosecutor with an eye for style and a passion for fine cuisine.  Like so many of her kind, Knight works long hours, and the lifestyle of the workaholic takes its toll on her personal relationships.  Nevertheless, when her colleague Jake is found dead in a seedy motel with a teenage male prostitute, Knight refuses to follow the police in assuming Jake to be the assailant in an apparent murder/suicide.  As she undertakes her own unofficial investigation to exonerate her friend, Knight and her creator take us on a tour of LA, from its gangland hotspots to the opulence of its gated communities, via a broad cross-section of high-tone eateries.

As a heroine, Knight covers all bases.  Ballsy and determined, but also compassionate, she enjoys a close relationship with two female friends, but lives a life of relative isolation.  Living indefinitely in a hotel after winning a case for the owner’s daughter, her existence has a whiff of impersonal impermanence to it.  Indeed, one of the key themes of the book is the fragile relationships urban living offers.  Knight is by no means a downbeat character though.  There is a sororal feel to the scenes where she throws back martinis with girl friends, colleague Toni and Detective Bailey Keller.  At times, Guilt by Association walks the line where Sex and the City meets LA Law.

This is due in no small part to the profusion of restaurants Rachel visits.  Scarcely a mealtime goes by without her dropping into a high-class culinary outlet; as literary gourmands go, Rachel Knight makes even Inspector Montalbano seem lacking.  Clark takes a similar approach with clothing, sharing Pelecanos’ penchant for listing individual items worn.  While I myself struggle to take an interest even in my own clothing, much less anyone else’s, the detail here does add a counterpoint of femininity to the scenes where Knight browbeats gangbangers and flees from gunfire.

Curiously for a book with a legal protagonist, much of the action centres around a quasi-police investigation.  As Knight builds her own case, she does it with Bailey Keller alongside her, badging witnesses and front-desk staff, and needling information out of persons of interest.  This is perhaps the biggest surprise in Guilt by Association.  I’d long suspected that case notes were passed, baton style, from detectives to attorneys, with only limited contact between the two around trial time.  Instead, it appears DAs take a far more active role in investigations.  As such, Guilt by Association feels a lot like a lawyer procedural.

Clark’s publisher, Mulholland Books, look to tap into the mystique of the Hollywood Hills, and Guilt by Association hammers that particular nail violently on the head.  Clark captures perfectly the street-level criminality that characterises areas of LA, throwing in bilingual Spanish/English chatter, and the bleak realities of foster parenting, exploitation and the gangland hierarchy.  At the other end of the social scale, Knight steps inside the houses of the self-righteous wealthy, exposing the cruelty and hypocrisy that are so often associated with a hefty bank balance.

Overall, Guilt by Association is a well-plotted début, with rich characterisation and a native’s eye for Los Angeles society.  I look forward in earnest to her next offering, Guilt by Degrees.

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