Defending Britta Stein

Defending Britta Stein is a gripping legal thriller that takes place in Chicago during 2018. Britta Stein is a 92-year-old woman who has a tiff with Chicago's beloved 95-year-old tavern owner Ole Hendryks. When it was publicly announced that Ole was going to be inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Danish American Association of Chicago, Britta spray-paints insults in the middle of the night on the exterior of his tavern The Melancholy Dane. Britta exposes Ole as a Nazi collaborator during the Nazi occupation of Denmark with her insults. Attorney Catherine Lockhart is asked by a lawyer friend, Walter Jenkins,  to represent her in a $5,000,000 defamation lawsuit filed by Ole. Ole Hendryks has retained a high priced lawyer named Sterling Sparks from the prestigious Jenkins and Fairchild law firm. Sparks' nickname is Six O'Clock Sparks because he is an aggressive publicity hound. A former law clerk of Walter's, Emma Fisher, is Britta's grand-daughter and she accompanies Britta to her appointments with Catherine as well as does research for Catherine.  

Ole Hendryks has had an old photograph of him and his father posted in his restaurant for fifty years. He claims that in 1943 his family helped hundreds of Jews escape from the gas chambers during WWII. Ole and his father snuck Jewish families out of Denmark in their fishing boat in the middle of the night heading toward Sweden. He has been labeled a hero by his customers as well as the media. However, Britta Stein has alleged that Ole did not rescue any Jews but in fact helped gather Jews for deportation by the Nazis. She also said that the family's name is Hendrickson, not Hendryks. The lawsuit is being heard by a no nonsense judge, Obadiah Wilson, in the Cook County Circuit Court Law Division. With Catherine's husband Liam Taggart investigating Hendryk's background in Denmark the defense of Britta Stein begins.

This story was captivating from the beginning. I couldn't put it down even on the day I needed to shop for my Thanksgiving dinner. While I got to the store in late afternoon, the book was satisfying enough for me to keep thinking about it for the rest of the day. The plot follows the work that Catherine is doing on Britta's case. Most of that work involves interviewing Britta to get her side of the story. Britta insists on taking her time telling her story even though Catherine only has 3 weeks to get ready for trial. The interview takes 100 pages but is very entertaining. Unfortunately, what Britta reveals about life in Denmark under German occupation actually happened. The rest of the story, including the characters, is fiction.  I loved that the 1943 photo of Ole and his father in front of their boat turned out to be proof that he was a Nazi collaborator. Because Catherine cannot prove Britta's allegations, she uses an in court strategy that tricks Ole into telling the truth.  

Awesome read!  5 out of 5 stars.