Release Date: October 26, 2021
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-57869-069-5
eBook: 978-1-57869-070-1  Click Here to purchase the eBook
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-57869-073-2
LCCN: 2021911159
Booksellers and Libraries: Order Here.

Synopsis

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 2018 Foreword 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.

Praise

“The First Amendment remains front and center in this legal thriller…The cast is comprised of an eclectic group of complex characters with intriguing backstories. And 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 Reviews

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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, runs 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

Reviews & In the News

Main Street Rag, Volume 27, Number 2, Summer 2022 (#106): An Intent to Commit | Bernie Lambek | by George Longenecker

Storycomic, February 23, 2022: Episode 144: Bernie Lambek, Mystery Author (podcast here, video below)

The Bridge, December 15, 2021: Lambek Writes an Engaging, Second “Novel of Ideas”

Vermont Bar Journal, Volume 47, No. 3, Fall 2021 Issue: Book Review.

Burlington Free Press, November 25, 2021: Consider these Vermont-related books, just in time for holiday-shopping season

The Times Argus Reader, November 12, 2021: ‘Fact and fiction come together in new book’ by Peter Cobb Correspondent

Meet the Author

Bernie Lambek practices law in Montpelier, Vermont. His first novel, Uncivil Liberties, was published by Rootstock Publishing in 2018 and was the bestselling novel of the year at indie bookstore Bear Pond Books.