Judge Martin F. Clark Jr. This is Me

Education

 View all 134 references Web References

1. 1. The VLW Blog

   www.valawyersweekly.com/vlwblo - [Cached]

   Published on: 7/15/2008   Last Visited: 7/15/2008

   http://www.valawyersweekly.com/vlwblog/2008/07/14/
   whos-who-in-the-legal-limit/ Judge Martin Clark's newest novel, The Legal Limit, is drawing favorable reviews in the national press.
   
   Clark, who has been on the bench for 15 years, currently serves as a circuit court judge in Patrick and Henry Counties and the City of Martinsville.In a provocative introduction to his tale of two brothers, Clark says the story was prompted by his own involvement in a similar case that required him to balance a straight application of the law against doing justice.
   
   Clark's foreword also says local readers in Patrick County - population 20,000 - will recognize the prototypes for a number of the figures who populate his story of a prosecutor who broke the law to protect his brother.

2. 2. www.martinsvillebulletin.com

   www.martinsvillebulletin.com/a - [Cached]

   Published on: 7/6/2008   Last Visited: 7/6/2008

   Judge Clark to launch latest book
   ...
   Judge Martin Clark of Stuart has released his third novel, "The Legal Limit," and will begin his 24-city book tour Wednesday in Stuart.
   
   Acording to a press release from his publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, a reception and book signing will be held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Bull Mountain Arts/The Depot Emporium in downtown Stuart.
   
   Clark stated in the release that he wanted to start his book tour in Stuart because "I've lived here all my life, and Patrick County has always been so supportive and kind when it comes to my books."
   
   Also, the novel is set in Patrick County and his hometown of Stuart, he stated.
   
   Clark, a circuit court judge for Patrick and Henry counties and for Martinsville, receives much of his material and inspiration from this occupation.According to the press release, this newest novel is inspired by one of the cases over which he presided.
   
   "While some of it is complete fiction," he said in a press release, "whole portions are based on real events and real people from this part of the world."
   
   "The Legal Limit," Clark explained in the press release, is meant to be entertaining, but he also delves into complex issues regarding the judicial system, family loyalty, marriage, integrity and tolerance.
   
   This combination of entertainment and complexity of issues has produced starred reviews for "The Legal Limit," the press release notes.Publisher's Weekly wrote that Clark "takes his storytelling prowess to the next level in what is his most substantial and thought-provoking work to date."
   
   His newest novel was also labeled by Kirkus Reviews as a "fine, meaty thriller. . . a masterful mix of legal arcana and white-knuckle suspense," the press release stated.
   
   Clark's previous novels, "The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living" and "Plain Heathen Mischief," the press release stated, both received much praise and attention, including a New York Times Notable Book recognition.
   
   According to the press release, all profit from the sales of his novel will be donated to Stuart Presbyterian Church and the Bull Mountain Arts Co-op.

3. 3. www.latimes.com

   www.latimes.com/features/books - [Cached]

   Published on: 7/9/2008   Last Visited: 7/9/2008

   'The Legal Limit' by Martin Clark
   ...
   It does Martin Clark's fine new novel, "The Legal Limit," no injustice at all to call it perfect summer reading.
   ...
   Clark brings unusual credentials to what is essentially a legal thriller.Now 47, he's been a circuit court judge in a small Virginia town since the age of 32.He's the author of two previous novels, both highly praised.In "The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living" (2000), a judge bored with his life and estranged from his wife sets off with his pot-addled brother on a picaresque journey to recover a very strange woman's allegedly stolen money.In "Plain Heathen Mischief" (2004), a disgraced Baptist minister gets out of jail to find his wife divorcing him and the teenage girl he may or may not have seduced suing him for millions.He too sets off on a surreal road trip and may or may not find salvation in high-end insurance scams.
   
   "The Legal Limit" is a darker, more grounded story, perhaps because -- as Clark informs us in a provocative first-person introduction and afterward -- the story is essentially a roman , clef on an actual case that came to his attention as a judge in Stuart, Va.
   ...
   Clark has a shrewd and thoughtful grasp of this terrain.
   ...
   Clark has a sure ear for regional dialogue -- a quality that often seems to attach itself naturally to the adjective "Southern" and the noun "writer" -- and a vigorous, if somewhat wordy descriptive touch, particularly in the action sequences.Those are formidable tools of exposition, and a reader is inclined to wish that the author trusted a bit more in his abilities to deploy them in the service of his story.
   ...
   Still, these are points worth making only because Clark appears to be a writer on his way to things even more ambitious than this engrossingly realized novel.Apart from his writerly gifts, he has an unselfconscious appreciation of the physical and regional geography of the place where he's rooted and, beyond that, a mordant apprehension of an essential truth about his day job: What we call the criminal justice system is really about law and not about justice.
   ...
   Martin Clark
   
   Alfred A. Knopf: 368 pp., $24.95