Edward Hayes is that unusual combination: the likable lawyer, one who could have stepped off the stage ofGuys and Dolls orChicago.Mouthpiece is his story, a colorful, irreverent, and revealing look at the practice of law in modern times and a social and political anatomy of New York City. It recounts Hayes’s childhood in the tough Irish sections of Queens and his eventual escape to the University of Virginia and then to Columbia Law. Not at all white-shoe firm material, Hayes headed to the hair-raising, crime-ridden South Bronx of the midseventies–first as a homicide prosecutor, and then as a defense attorney seeking to free the same sort of people he used to put in jail. Tom Wolfe immortalized this setting inThe Bonfire of the Vanities; Ed Hayes was his guide, and he served as the model for the scrappy defense lawyer Tommy Killian. Eventually, Hayes moved his practice to Manhattan, using the rough-and-tumble techniques learned in the Bronx on behalf of the rich and powerful and famous. From a high-stakes legal shootout on the Andy Warhol estate to protecting the World Trade Center visions of architect Daniel Libeskind, Hayes has been behind the scenes of how New York City really operates.For the tens of millions fascinated by New York’s unique blend of glitter and grime, of idealism and corruption, of avarice and ambition, Mouthpiece provides the ultimate close-up of high-stakes Gotham gamesmanship. Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005. For personal use only. All rights reserved.