Ben Kincaid is now a U.S. senator, but he barely has time to settle into his office before he has another murder to solve. Thaddeus Roush, Supreme Court nominee, has just revealed he is gay, and when the body of a woman is discovered during Roush's press conference--and Roush's partner is implicated in her death--Ben comes to the man's defense. Bernhardt has his formula down pat by now (the first Kincaid novel, Primary Justice, appeared in 1992), and those familiar with the series won't encounter many surprises. This one will feel either tired or comfortable, depending on whether readers think of Kincaid as an old friend. --David Pitt Copyright 2007 Booklist

You can take a smart lawyer out of Oklahoma, but you can't take the Oklahoma smarts out of Ben Kincaid. Senator (Senator!) Ben Kincaid has been freshly appointed to fill a Congressional vacancy. So he's on hand in the Rose Garden when President Blake introduces U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Thaddeus T. Roush, his nominee to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court. There follow brief laudatory remarks, polite applause and then a bombshell. "I'm gay," says the candidate, an announcement that provokes a frantic rush to choose up sides: There are those who believe sexual preference has nothing to do with judicial performance, and there are those convinced that indeed it does. But that's just the curtain-raiser. Judge Roush's own press conference the following day is bloody murder, the victim a young woman, the leading suspect the judge's partner in a seven-year-old relationship. It looks like Ben Kincaid time, though brilliant as the Oklahoma Kid is, even he's daunted by this kind of multitasking. He must represent a beleaguered judge at his conformation hearing. He must crack a complicated murder case. And he must find a satisfactory answer to an importunate fiance's demand to know when, at long last, she's going to be married. Give Bernhardt (Capitol Murder, 2006, etc.) anything like a courtroom and he holds his own. Beyond that, it's pot-boiling. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Set in a near future in which "the Christian Congregation, one of the most powerful lobbies in the country... helped put the last three Presidents in office," Bernhardt's 15th political thriller (after Capitol Murder) to feature Oklahoma attorney Ben Kincaid opens with an intriguing premise, but rapidly devolves into a series of improbable twists and turns. Thaddeus Roush, the Supreme Court nominee of Republican President Blake, confounds his natural base on the right by coming out of the closet ("Ladies and gentlemen, I am a gay American") during the Rose Garden ceremony announcing his selection. The reverberations from this shock wave are still being felt when Roush finds an unknown woman's corpse in his home during a televised press conference. The Democratic Party leadership turns to Kincaid, newly appointed to complete the term of a former Oklahoma senator, for help in saving Roush's nomination. Unfortunately, the book lacks the credible insider information that might offset the unlikely plot developments, while too many supporting details (tokens in the D.C. Metro?) ring false. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved