Book Reviews: Odell’s Fall by Norman Bacal

Well, everyone, it’s Thursday. That means that tomorrow’s Friday, and we’re almost to the end of another week. It’s already shaping up to be an interesting year, so why don’t we leave the world behind for a while and dive into some fictional problems instead? Today I want to bring you a review for a very interesting–albeit high-tension–novel called Odell’s Fall by Norman Bacal.

Odell Moore is one of the top lawyers at his firm. Everyone aspires to be him and envies him all at once. After all, you don’t come by the nickname “The General” by accident. When his eyes darken, you know that the General is about to go to war. It is no surprise that a man like him was born from the ashes of a tragic past. Yet the General has a secret, a soft side that could very well be his downfall: his blushing bride, Dee Brabant, daughter of racist Senator Brabant of Alabama. Little does Odell know, his father-in-law’s objections to his and Dee’s interracial union are but the beginning of his troubles.

When a murder in his home changes him from the firm’s golden boy to persona non grata, Odell’s whole life is thrown into flux. His marriage is in shambles, he questions every relationship he has, and he becomes the number one suspect in a high-profile crime—and even he isn’t sure of his innocence. The truth is far more complicated than anyone could imagine. The question is, will everything come to light before it’s too late?

Odell’s Fall by Norman Bacal certainly lives up to its predecessor, William Shakespeare’s Othello. In fact, I’d argue that I like Odell’s Fall much, much better. The ending in particular fits my tastes much better than that of any Shakespearean tale. I cannot discuss why without giving too much away, but I will say this: for those who are tired of tragedies the likes of Romeo’s and Juliet’s demises will be pleased, but those who hate happily ever afters will not be disappointed, either. Like everything in life and in this book, the ending is complex and bittersweet, which makes it satisfying in a way that most works, including those by William Shakespeare himself, are not.

I’ll admit, the closest that I’ve ever come to a complete retelling of a Shakespeare play, as opposed to a mere adaptation of one, has been The Lion King. (Yes, if you think about it, that movie is just Hamlet with lions, but that is a topic for another day.) Maybe I just haven’t realized that I have before, or maybe they’ve just never caught my eye before. However, I am used to looking out for when works slip in references to older works, such as Shakespeare’s plays, and if they are done well, find looking for these references to be one of the unexpected joys of the reading experience. In this sense, Odell’s Fall certainly did not let me down. Bacal has left subtle references, from Odell’s surname “Moore” to the nickname of a rival his firm has to face, “The Turk”, that will fill any English major with pride. Given that his previous occupation was as a managing partner of a law firm and not in anything having to do with English literature, I have to give Bacal props for his ability to do this.

In addition to how well Odell’s Fall ties in with and even surpasses Othello, the book is, overall, a well-written and entertaining novel. The writing was very compelling, and I found it hard to put the book down whenever I had time available to pick it up. Considering Odell and many of the other major players are lawyers, it could have been easy for Bacal to fall into the trap of relying too heavily on his backward and bogging the work down with too much legal jargon. I did fear that this would happen at some point. However, the author surprised me. Bacal very rarely made the legal side of this legal thriller boring, and it was much easier for me to follow that part of the book than I had expected (not easy but easier).

Each character has his/her good points and bad points, but it is still easy to pick the “heroes” and “villains” out of the bunch. Given that the multi-layered plot depends heavily on distrust, misplaced trust, and twist after gripping twist, this kind of character development works perfectly with the plot arc. Readers might not necessarily be able to relate to any one character’s entire situation or who they are as people, but they will find aspects that they can really latch onto: desperately trying to live up to expectations and climb the corporate ladder, trying to live down the criticisms of a partner’s judgmental parent, harboring trust issues rooted in a troubled past, risking everything for a relationship only for the relationship to turn sour, and so on. While he is definitely no angel, I have to say that Odell is my favorite character, perhaps because he is not an angel. He is very human with very human flaws (that I would love to smack him for many times), but he is also resilient. He makes mistakes, but in the end, it isn’t about who doesn’t make mistakes; it’s about how people conduct themselves after they have.

The best part of Odell’s Fall, though, is its timelessness. It serves as the embodiment of the saying “the more things change, the more things stay the same.” Bacal shows that many of the issues that the reader might have thought were resolved long ago, such as the taboo of interracial marriage in the American South, might not have disappeared as thoroughly as we would like to think. The book addresses many themes that are as painfully relevant today as they were years, decades, even centuries ago: racial tensions, familial drama, the “anything to get ahead” mentality we have created when it comes to our careers and social statuses, and the lack of trust we cultivate in our personal and professional lives. Perhaps this means that it also draws attention to old wounds that many of us would rather ignore, but if we don’t check them sooner or later, all they will do is fester and infect all of society.

If I were to pick a fault in Bacal’s work, it would be that he takes a while to get to the heart of the thriller aspect. There is plenty of tension and emotional drama in the beginning to catch and keep the reader’s attention. Regardless, the actual murder does not take place until well into the book. I did not personally find this a problem as I was so wrapped in the lives of Bacal’s characters that, really, the murder and whodunnit aspects were not the main focus of the story for me anyway. However, for those looking for a legal thriller with a more traditional arc that starts with the major crime close to the beginning, this aspect might be disappointing. The book is also 416 pages, so it is a time commitment, but I think it’s worth every page.

All in all, Odell’s Fall by Norman Bacal is an excellent read. A gripping legal thriller, it is well-written with complex characters, a compelling plot, and enough twists to keep you constantly on the edge of your seat. I didn’t even notice any proofreading errors, which has been rare for me when reading these books published on a smaller scale. Whether it was because there truly were no noteworthy errors or because I was just too wrapped up in the story to notice, it’s a good thing. According to the Amazon description, this is just the first in a series of novels based on Shakespeare’s plays, and if the others are anything like Odell’s Fall, I can’t wait to get my hands on them.

You buy a physical or eBook copy of Odell’s Fall by Norman Bacal on Amazon.

Do you know of any books I should read? E-mail me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com and let me know!