Defending Billy Ryan offers an opportunity to look at Higgins's flexibility as a writer. Over a long and successful career he has played with a wide variety of narrative structures. The broad canvas of Wonderful Years, Wonderful Years (1988), the paired "companion" novels of Trust (1989) and Victories (1990), and now the third Kennedy series novel illustrate Higgins's willingness explore different types of novel — all, to be sure types of proven marketability. Not one of Dr. Johnson's blockheads, Higgins always writes for money. The impressive quality of his work is the serious artistry with which he does so. Defending Billy Ryan is a series-detective/lawyer novel; but not only is it vastly more richly textured than any Perry Mason novel, it is surely richer in character, social observation, or technique than the highly praised law novels of John Grisham or Scott Turow.

1. Contrast Higgins's series lawyer with any...