Missing Witness

By Gordon Campbell

Book Overview

1973, Phoenix, Arizona. A beautiful woman with a gun enters a house with her twelve-year-old daughter. When they leave, the man inside is dead. Though the only witness to the fatal shooting is in a catatonic state and unable to testify, the police, the attorney general's office, and the media have already declared the woman guilty. But the best trial lawyer in Phoenix, Dan Morgan, has been hired to prove her innocent. For Morgan and his idealistic young protege, Doug McKenzie, the goal is to win at any cost. But there are no easy answers, only shocks and mysteries, as the question of guilt versus innocence takes on a profound and disturbing new meaning.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061646636
• ISBN13: 9780061646638
• Release Date: December 2008
• Publisher: Harper
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

A Phoenix Son Also Rises

Gordon Campbell's book, Missing Witness, is like a double album of classic rock riffs collected over a lifetime. There is so much crammmed in there, that you wonder if he has anything left for his next venture. The main characters, a veteran trial lawyer and his young understudy, build up their case in blind allegiance to their client, indulging questionable theories at all costs, and making unbelievable arguments to acquit their client that inevitably come back around to haunt. Somewhere around the middle, after the first trial, they tear it all down, and take the opposite side of the adversarial argument, the way lawyers are trained to do in theory, but seldom if ever get the chance to do outside of books like this one. I thoroughly enjoyed the double entendre and the subtle truths about the legal system from a true insider. This is a fun book. And as a bonus, he is right on with the law and the times in which it is written, which is something you rarely see in the McGrishams.

Will be recommended, passed around, talked about and read multiple times

MISSING WITNESS by Gordon Campbell (a trial attorney in Salt Lake City, Utah) takes place in Phoenix, Arizona in 1973 and is told through the voice of Doug McKenzie, a newly-minted attorney who has turned down an offer to practice with a prestigious San Francisco firm for the chance to litigate in his hometown of Phoenix as an associate in a smaller, less lustrous partnership. The reason is that McKenzie wishes to work with his role model, a criminal attorney named Dan Morgan. He gets his chance when Rita Eddington, accompanied by her 12-year-old daughter Miranda, pays a visit to Travis, her estranged husband. Travis is shot to death, with mother and daughter being the only eyewitnesses. When Rita is charged with murder, Travis's father, a local landowner of great wealth, retains Morgan to defend his daughter-in-law. The incident has left Miranda in a catatonic state, so that she is unable to testify as to what happened between her father and mother. Yet Morgan, an eccentric, hard-drinking litigator who is able to think outside the box, believes he can successfully defend his client with a daring strategy. McKenzie quickly learns, however, that life in a law firm is not at all what he imagined it would be, even as he slowly becomes aware that his hometown, which he thought he knew so well, hides secrets at every turn, one of which comes back to haunt both Morgan and McKenzie when they least suspect it. Campbell is a masterful and spellbinding wordsmith whose ability does not begin and end at creating and telling a superb story. One example: a brief but important vignette in the book takes place in Henry Africa's, a San Francisco fern bar that reached the height of its popularity in the early 1970s. I spent a great deal of time in that establishment, and Campbell's description of it, from décor to ambience, is so spot-on that while reading the passages concerning it, I could once again taste the Irish coffee that I drank on an almost daily basis there. Those familiar with 1973 Phoenix undoubtedly will feel the same way. On top of everything, the author leaves his readers with an ending that is incredibly uplifting, unbelievable in some ways yet ultimately entirely credible. The last three paragraphs are worth the price of the book alone (don't peek ahead, for if you do, the ending will mean nothing to you) yet encapsulate the one word that is the motivator behind the main story: hope. MISSING WITNESS seems to have been published with little fanfare, yet this is the type of novel that will be recommended, passed around, talked about and read multiple times. --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

Nail-biting courtroom drama!

Gordon Campbell, an experienced trial attorney, proves himself an adroit and polished suspense writer in MISSING WITNESS, his debut as an author of fiction. He sets his story in 1973 Arizona and begins with two persons entering a little house. Six shots ring out. The front door opens again and the two emerge. One drops a gun as the property's sheep man, Juan Menchaka, who has been watching and listening from afar, runs to them. He looks inside and sees a man dead, in a pool of blood. Soon Doug McKenzie, newly-hired associate at Butler and Menendez, gets to sit second chair as his firm's legendary defense lawyer, Dan Morgan, tries to prove their client, beautiful Rita Eddington, innocent of gunning down her husband, Travis. Peculiarly, wealthy rancher Ferris Eddington, Travis' father, insists on personally bankrolling his daughter-in-law's first-class defense. Dan tells Doug that to get Rita acquitted, they must prove the other person who entered house with Rita killed Travis. That would be 12-year-old Miranda Eddington, Rita and Travis' daughter, who has a history of mental problems and who went into an apparently catatonic state when she was transported to jail with her mother after the shooting! Rita's trial proceeds with many nail-biting moments as the artful but high-strung and haunted Dan Morgan pulls out all the stops -- legal and a few not so legal -- to try to win Rita's freedom. Doug, who has never tried a case before, gets a whale of an education, not only regarding courtroom strategy and tactics but also concerning the position and power jockeying amongst the partners in the firm. Doug "Yes, sir"s and "No, sir"s so often one almost thinks he is toadying. But, no, he is a well-mannered young attorney with a great deal to learn. And learn he does. Actually, Doug, not burdened in 1973 by the regrets and disappointments that weigh on Dan, displays better judgment and insight than his gone-to-seed legal mentor at times. MISSING WITNESS is a man's book in the sense that it is told entirely from the male perspective, and it projects some biases liable to offend feminists and even non-feminist women. But this story takes place in the early 1970s, so the political correctness to which we are accustomed is rightfully not yet mainstream. Still, if anything underachieves in this superb thriller, it is the alleged motives for the murder that drive the plot; they could come right out of TV's LAW AND ORDER. But I'm not going to hold any niggling reservations against Campbell. He has written a first-rate, ingenious courtroom drama. The trial's closing arguments in the final pages of the novel are brilliant, as is the twist revealed after their delivery. For aficionados of legal fiction, MISSING WITNESS is about as close to book heaven as one can get.

Turow comparisons not far off

I loved this book. And for me the mystery is secondary to the wonderful characters here, (who have been listed and described in other reviews, along with the plot.) They're all the things that real people are: sometimes wry, sometimes mean, sometimes weak, sometimes strong and ruthless, but always down-to-earth and engagingly human. Not perfect, but you'll enjoy spending time with them and getting to know them better. I really admired the small, subtle touches Campbell used to illuminate character (you'll have to read the novel to discover the many examples), and the perfectly pitched dialogue and arc of each scene. The court room episodes are also nicely done, imparting a lot of legal procedure while allowing the lawyers to breathe, too. And the whodunit, while a surprise, is not the complete shock that would overwhelm the rest of the book. "Missing Witness" has been compared to the legal thrillers of Scott Turow, which seems pretty accurate, though Campbell hasn't achieved the power and pathos present in Turow's best work. Yet. Also recommended: A Stranger Lies There by Stephen Santogrossi, Power Play by Joseph Finder.

Excellent legal thriller from first-time author

Young lawyer Doug McKenzie turns down a lucrative job at a big city firm in favor of a small partnership in Phoenix, with the stipulation that he be permitted to work with his idol Dan Morgan, who some call the greatest litagator there ever was. During his first few months on the job, however, Doug doesn't even meet Dan, let alone work with him. But then, the daughter-in-law of the firm's biggest client is accused of murdering her husband, and suddently Dan Morgan has another great case to litagate--and Doug, with his own personal connection to the defendent and her family, walks out on another opportunity (a golf tournament) to be at Dan's side. Doug and Dan pull out all of the stops for their beautiful defendent, but as the story continues, the are faced with an unexpected dilemma in the form of their defendant's daughter. This is a page-turning legal thriller reminiscent of works by legal masters such as Turow and Grisham. In fact, Missing Witness reminded me in particular of the latter's The Firm, as Doug finds himself questioning his own actions as well as those of others around him. The suspense builds throughout the novel, and the reader is treated to some gripping courtroom scenes along the way. The early 70s setting does not seem to add much but is necessary for the legal precedents of that time. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and eagerly away author Campbell's next offering.