Overview

Mary and Joe Martin are getting a divorce. Mary makes the decision, Joe reluctantly understands, and they both anticipate a simple and amicable settlement. When Joe stops by their house and uses his key to enter without calling in advance, an argument starts. Joe throws a book across the room in frustration and storms out. Joe doesn't know that Mary throws a book at him, because the door closes before it hits the wall. Humiliated by his own emotional display and ignorant of Mary's behavior, Joe is overwhelmed by guilt. Mary decides she'd better hire a lawyer to navigate the divorce and wrongly assumes that one lawyer is as loathsome as another. She engages Mr. George Bleedem, J.D., which turns out to be her most important - and worst - decision. Bleedem manages her case using the insidious tactics common nationwide. Mary and Joe are vulnerable, volatile and frightened as the case proceeds. The reader is given tools to make sense of what is going on: it is impossible to be fooled about the perils of the legal arena after watching this case unfold with the author's blow-by-blow commentary revealing the underbelly of the divorce industry.