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Friendly Enterprise by Harold D. Anderson Xlibris
book review by Priscilla Estes
"John, how can we be sure this investigation will go nowhere?"
"Stylishly overweight" David Jason cannot believe his good fortune when Paul Young appoints him lead attorney to investigate a multimillion-dollar insurance scam. Forty years old and an average lawyer at the Department of Justice, Jason is elated that his boss trusts him to lead this key investigation. Almost as thrilling is the destination, Chicago, and the possibility of returning home on the government's tab. He is sure to impress his family, friends, and the poor neighborhood from which he came.
Young's trust is sincere all right; he trusts Jason to fumble the investigation so that high-ranking officials behind the far-reaching scam can continue to enjoy their largesse. But Jason grasps the deception early on and vows to prove to the powerful in Washington that he was up to the challenge.
Much is good about this book: delightfully flawed characters, a whizz-bang start, the breathless pace, and a complicated plot that is rendered believable by the author's thirty years' experience as an insurance executive. Perhaps too much goes on in 315 pages: the early portions of the book launch twenty characters, and the complex plot requires a flow chart to follow. Personally, the author appears to have the background to provide a more seamless stitching of the story and the expansion of the three compelling characters: David Jason; his ex-girlfriend, Cheryl; and Schoolboy.
Jason remains an endearing character, loyal to his friends from the hood. The author, a native Chicagoan, has the insights and skills to bring the character of David Jason more fully to life against the backdrop of the shady Chicago political scene, and we hope he does so in future novels.