Webster’s latest client, Vesper Ellis, is an attractive young widow who entrusted the management of her late husband’s substantial estate to several investment firms. Vesper suspects money is missing from her accounts and goes to Webster for help. He determines that two of her money managers are crooks who have siphoned off Vesper’s money and those of other clients into their personal accounts. To recoup Vesper’s losses, Webster must convince the investment firms to make her whole.

I found the legal aspects of “Pro Bono” interesting. When Webster threatens a lawsuit against the investment firms, they deny everything and try to stonewall him by refusing to return messages, breaking appointments, and other annoying delay tactics. These tactics are par for the course in potential business litigation, and I enjoyed seeing Webster work his way around the red tape.

However, I doubt most of Perry’s followers read “Pro Bono” to get a primer in white-collar business litigation. So, the crooked financial advisors resort to tried-and-true strong-arm tactics by hiring a couple of goons to threaten Webster and steal his evidence. Unfortunately, they prove to be about as inept a pair of thugs as you’ll find in this type of thriller. The two crooked financial advisors are even less threatening when trying to personally stop Webster. Readers don’t want criminals to succeed in books like “Pro Bono,” but they do want to believe the protagonists are in real danger. This novel’s overall level of villainy is about what you would encounter in a typical Hardy Boys book.

The dishonest financial advisors aren’t even the most annoying characters in “Pro Bono.” That “honor” goes to a pair of ex-cons who were inmate firefighters on a prison bus 18 years earlier. They found the wreckage of Webster’s stepfather’s car and figured out the teenager ran the stepfather off the road, killing him. During their prison stay, they learn who Webster has become and think there could be a substantial payday in store for them when they eventually encounter the adult Webster. I won’t describe how the two ex-cons figure into the plot. However, they are among the least believable and most annoying characters I’ve encountered in crime thrillers. Perry could easily have turned them into a far more worthy pair of adversaries for Webster than the investment advisors or their inept goons. Unfortunately, their entire subplot is badly botched.

The discussion of the actual fraud and its detection in “Pro Bono” is brief and general. I suspect a detailed description would have been overly technical and incredibly dull. However, by keeping the discussion of the crime’s mechanics brief, the author seems to run out of material about three-quarters of the way through the book. He then inserts a brand new subplot into the story. At this point in the novel, Webster decides to recover the money his stepfather stole from his mother 18 years earlier. Again, readers will get a rather uninteresting legal education on the disposition of abandoned funds. As Webster tries to recover the money, his stepfather’s equally larcenous relatives learn there might be unknown-to-them millions lying around that they might get their hands on. This subplot seems to have so little to do with the book’s main storyline that it might have originated as an unpublished shorter work that the author rolled into the body of the novel.

I’ve read several of Thomas Perry’s earlier books, but “Pro Bono” is the first I can’t recommend. The sections that work are interesting, such as Webster’s efforts to get through the legal red tape thrown at him by the investment firms. Unfortunately, the action scenes, usually Perry’s strength, are too short and entirely lacking in suspense. The book’s villains aren’t likable people, but they are petty and inept. The crooked advisors and their goons never really present the sort of menace that makes for a great thriller. Further, the last few chapters seem to belong in a different book. Even the book’s title has little to do with anything in the novel. “Pro Bono” has too few pros and too many cons to recommend.

NOTE: The publisher graciously provided me with a copy of this book through NetGalley. However, the decision to review the book and the contents of this review are entirely my own.