An Intent to Commit: A Novel
A kidnapping tale, a critical look at First Amendment rights, and a love story, An Intent to Commit follows the lives of characters who first appeared in Lambek’s earlier novel, Uncivil Liberties, a 2018 indie bookstore bestseller and Foreword Reviews 2018 Indies Book of the Year Award Winner!
Sarah Jacobson is analytical, headstrong, and courageous. She is an organizer with Green Mountain Black Lives Matter and works with Vermont high school students to advance racial justice. As local schools raise the BLM flag, Sarah and her organization face hatred, hostility, racism, and antisemitism. When Sarah is kidnapped, her tender-hearted partner, Ricky Stillwell, must stand up against the hatred and fear in order to find her. This timely, engaging, and thought-provoking novel is at once a mystery, a dialog on legal theory, a study of white supremacy, and an exploration of young romance.
First Printing: October 26, 2021 Rootstock Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-57869-070-1 • LCCN: 2021911159 • 176 pages • $17.95
Praise for An Intent to Commit
“The First Amendment remains front and center in this legal thriller. . . . Lambek, a Vermont attorney, is a meticulous writer who stages even relatively minor scenes with the same descriptive precision he uses in his legal arguments. An engrossing, thoughtful, and disturbing drama that caters to fans of constitutional debates.”
—KIRKUS REVIEW
Read the full review here.
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“Looking for a civil rights whodunit? This book has it all–intrigue, tutorials, politics, good guys, bad guys–all set in Vermont among Vermont lawyers and people who matter. This novel weaves the story of Black Lives Matter versus Second Amendment worshipers as the participants lived it in court, at home and with friends over a cup of coffee. A flag and, yes, a kidnapping, run through it. This tale is at heart an owner’s manual on the ABCs of winning a civil rights struggle. It should be required reading in the first year of law school.”
—JAMES MORSE
retired Vermont Supreme Court Justice
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“Vermont attorney Bernie Lambek, in his second novel, again tells a story about lawyers involved in a controversial case, this time involving civil liberties issues in the current historical moment—the social and political divisions provoked and nurtured by a president, the Black Lives Matter movement, supporters of Second Amendment gun rights, free speech and the First Amendment. The reader of Lambek’s previous novel Uncivil Liberties will meet again characters from that story with new personal and legal issues, but need not have read the first novel to enjoy and learn from this one. An Intent to Commit is an engaging, thoughtful, and well-written novel.”
—STEPHEN WIZNER
William O. Douglas Clinical Professor Emeritus, Yale Law School
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An engaging novel, perfectly balanced between the expected fast-paced action and character development of a well-written legal thriller and the higher-level exploration of first amendment issues meant to satisfy the legal scholar in all of us.
—JENNIFER EMENS-BUTLER, ESQ.
Vermont Bar Journal, Fall 2021
Read the full review here.
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Press
Storycomic Presents: Bernie Lambek, Mystery Author
February 23, 2022
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Fact and Fiction Come Together in New Book
Peter Cobb, Times Argus, November 12, 2021
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Moments with Melinda: Bernie Lambek - “An Intent to Commit”
CCTV Center for Media & Democracy's November 18, 2021
Melinda Moulton interviews author Bernie Lambek about his novel. "An Intent To Commit" is a compelling mystery novel about white supremacy, human rights, racial justice, love, and our First Amendment, and Bernie Lambek has beautifully woven a fast-moving and engrossing story.
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