Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 03 - THE SPRING -- a Legal Thriller

Read Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 03 - THE SPRING -- a Legal Thriller Storyline:

"Clifford Irving delivers a parable about aging and euthanasia -- book discussion groups will love it. Recommended for all libraries."- Library Journal Set today in the Roaring Fork Valley of Colorado, this is the tale of a snowbound mountain town with a young woman mayor and a secret to protect from the outside world - a secret worth dying for, and perhaps worth killing for. "An extraordinarily entertaining and thoughtful combination of LOST HORIZONS and PRESUMED INNOCENT. Not only is it a mystery -- on at least two levels -- but it poses troubling questions concerning prolonged life and its ultimate value. - Booklist Dennis Conway, New York lawyer, has moved west to marry Sophie, the beautiful mayor of the 9,000-feet-high hamlet of Springhill. When his new in-laws are charged with murdering two of their close friends, Dennis is shocked, disbelieving, and volunteers to defend Sophie's parents at trial in Aspen. THE SPRING is at one and the same time a love story, a murder story, a courtroom novel, and a skiing adventure story with the most gripping avalanche scene ever written. "Irving drives his narrative from the fantastic to the realistic and back again, playing a game that's sure and steady. Highly recommended." -- Publishers WeeklyFrom Publishers WeeklyA simple, fabled premise?the existence of a Fountain of Youth?supports this modest suspenser from Clifford (Final Argument). The age-conquering waters here flow in a spring located thousands of feet above Aspen, Colo., their existence known only by the several hundred denizens of the town of Springhill. To avoid arousing the suspicion of outsiders, the townsfolk have entered into a pact to die voluntarily at the age of 100. The plot, which revolves around a murder trial arising from the discovery of the bodies of two of the Springfield dead, lays bare the inevitable kinks in so apparently practical and civilized a social contract. The intensely rural setting, reminiscent of that of The Shining or Deliverance, helps to cultivate a low-level tension, as do small but disturbing incidents like the disappearance of a cat or an anecdote about a woman's decapitation by avalanche. More melodramatic frights erupt at appropriate intervals. Irving drives his narrative from the fantastic to the realistic and back again, playing a game that's sure and steady?but one that's safe as well. Fans of risks in horror or suspense won't find them here. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalThe hamlet of Springhill nestles high in the Colorado Rockies. Residents are bursting with health, but they guard a secret: they grow old very, very slowly...and they decide when to die. When Manhattan attorney Dennis Conway falls in love with Springhill's mayor, Sophie Henderson, he and his two children move in with her. He's charmed by her parents, Scott and Bibsy, and by Harry Parrot, the town drunk/artist, but curious about the Water Board, an entity that wields great power over the townsfolk. When his in-laws are accused of illegally assisting in the suicide of two friends, he agrees to represent Bibsy. The secret (easy to guess, but who cares?) is revealed, and Dennis endangers his family to save someone whose time is up. Irving (The Argument, S. & S., 1993) delivers a parable about aging and euthanasia that's spare of prose and thoroughly creepy; book discussion groups will love it. Recommended for all libraries.-?Laurel A. Wilson, Alexandrian P.L, Mount Vernon, Ind.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.