Very likeable characters and a storyline that was fun to read while providing much material for our club discussion. There was something for everyone: humor, romance, mystery, and an interesting commentary on our legal system and the meaning of "justice."

Lisa Scottoline’s novels present interesting legal dilemmas.

In Scottoline’s THE VENDETTA DEFENSE, an old Italian man, “Pigeon Tony,” who lived in prewar Italy under Mussolini and the Black Shirts and fled to America with his young son, is now accused of murdering another Italian-American, Angelo Coluzzi. Coluzzi is a rich man who is corrupt and has ties to the Mafia.

During flashbacks in the book, we see why their ages-old feud, back to their lives in Italy, where Coluzzi was one of the Black Shirts, led to the killing. And, according to Pigeon Tony, that’s what it was—killing, not murder.

THE VENDETTA DEFENSE is one book in Scottoline’s series about a Philadelphia law firm. One of the associate lawyers in the firm takes on this case, made more difficult by Pigeon Tony’s ongoing insistence that he tell the judge that he did, in fact, kill Coluzzi. Pigeon Tony was sure the killing was justified because it wasn’t murder; Coluzzi killed Pigeon Tony’s wife in Italy many years ago and his son and daughter-in-law more recently in Philadelphia.

While this book wasn’t a not-put-downable thriller, it was interesting and did make me want to keep reading. Scottoline seems to like to set herself up to solve unsolvable legal dilemmas.