TROPICAL DOUBTSLegal Thriller
When Honolulu’s flamboyant and quirky attorney, Pancho McMartin, agrees to step out of his normal role as a criminal defense lawyer, he thinks it will be a challenging but welcome change from his daily dose of criminal clients. His old friend and father-figure, Manny Delacruz, has beseeched Pancho to handle a medical malpractice claim against the physicians who botched what should have been a routine surgery, but which resulted in Manny’s beloved wife being in a permanent vegetative state. The case looks good, the damages enormous, but when Manny is arrested for the murder of one of the doctors, Pancho finds himself back in his old role. If Manny is convicted, it means he won’t be able to be at his wife’s bedside to hold her hand, caress her face, and read his poems to her. He will have lost his reason to live. The pressure on Pancho is enormous. While he and his team try to make sense out of one of the most sinister and complicated murder schemes he’s ever seen, the medical malpractice case chugs forward, in jeopardy of being worthless should Manny be convicted.
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Pancho McMartin watched as his client, newly convicted of
murder, was escorted to the side door of the courtroom by two men in brown
jumpsuits with “Sheriff” stenciled across the back. The client, a large Samoan
in his early twenties, had a shaved head. Except for his face, every square inch
of visible flesh was tattooed. With shackles on his wrists and ankles, he
shuffled to the door and then stopped and glanced over his shoulder at Pancho.
He’d sat through the trial with a look of absolute disdain, even menace, and
now Pancho almost laughed out loud at the expression on the man’s face—fear.
Pancho gave him a small nod, which he hoped would convey some sense of
encouragement. Not that there was much to encourage. The Samoan would spend the
rest of his life in prison unless Pancho could win an appeal of little or no
merit.
His client disappeared through the
door, and Pancho was alone in the courtroom. He shivered as the room, now
empty, returned to its usual freezing temperature. He leaned his elbows on the
counsel table and put his head in his hands. This was his third trial loss in a
row, the second this year—a record for him.
Pancho knew his client was guilty
and hadn’t wanted to take the case. But the client’s family in Samoa
and Oceanside, California,
had collected the $250,000 fee Pancho charged for a murder case. Even then he
might have turned the case down, but Pancho’s private investigator and best
friend, Drew Tulafono, had asked him to take it on.
Welcome David. Can you tell us what your book is about?
Tropical Doubts is the third book in my Pancho McMartin legal thriller series set in Honolulu. Pancho is the top criminal defense attorney in Hawaii, but when the wife of a family friend falls into a permanent vegetative state following what should have been a routine surgery, the husband cajoles him into stepping out of his element and take on the medical malpractice case. The stress and the pressure on Pancho is enormous, but when the husband is arrested for the murder of one of the doctors being sued, Pancho finds himself juggling the medical malpractice and criminal defense cases, which, he discovers, are inextricably entwined.
With the help of his trusty private investigator and best friend, Drew Tulafono, a former NFL player, and Padma Dasari, the recently retired medical examiner for the city and county of Honolulu, who becomes Pancho’s medical expert, the team begins to uncover the complex mysteries of the case(s).
The first page is perhaps one of the most important pages in the whole book. It’s what draws the reader into the story. Why did you choose to begin your book this way?
One of the things I try to avoid in my legal thrillers is to become too formulaic. I began with murders in the first two books, but in Tropical Doubts, the murder doesn’t occur until later in the story. The medical malpractice case was too complicated to open with, so I had Pancho in court, suffering his third trial loss in a row, which sets the stage for new readers and conveys the sense of stress Pancho is under as he undertakes a high-stakes case which is well outside of his comfort zone.
In the course of writing your book, how many times would you say that first page changed and for what reasons?
Other than minor corrections, the first page never changed since it was more of a “set the stage” situation than factually relevant to the ultimate storyline. Although Pancho and Drew are the recurring characters, I write the Tropical series as stand-alone novels. The first page of Tropical Doubts lets new readers know who Pancho is and what he does for a living. It also conveys the fact that trial losses for Pancho are generally a rarity and that he is depressed over the current slump, which makes the ensuing events all the more stressful.
Was there ever a time after the book was published that you wished you had changed something on the first page?
No.
What advice can you give to aspiring authors to stress how important the first page is?
Obviously, the author needs to do something to get the reader interested right away. I don’t think it always has to be a bombshell. In Tropical Doubts, the reader sees Pancho McMartin watch as his client is taken away in shackles and learns that Pancho is on a bit of a losing streak. Hopefully, the scene is enough to get the reader invested in where Pancho goes from here.
Having traveled to all seven continents, he has also published a travel memoir entitled CONGA LINE ON THE AMAZON, which includes two Solas Traveler’s Tales award winners.
He says he includes his middle name, Myles, in his authorial appellation because there are far too many other David Robinson’s running around.
WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:
Website: davidmylesrobinson.comTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/DNRobinsonWrite
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