Malibu attorney Natasha Roit spent 10 years writing her courtroom-murder mystery; she wanted to make sure the characters were real and believeable-and flawed.
By Joe Fasbinder / Special, The Malibu Times
Malibu resident Natasha Roit is a civil attorney, a keen observer of people and situations, and she knows what goes into making a courtroom drama.
She has spent the greater part of the last decade writing “The Oregon Project,” a combination courtroom-murder mystery that is being published by Tapestry Press. Next week, Roit will be speaking and signing copies of her book at the Barnes & Noble bookstore on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica.
“I started writing it 10 years ago as a release from trial work,” Roit said. “That kind of work is stressful and focused, and there was a lot of time where I wanted to do something myself. I wrote for myself mostly, and it went through probably 100 redrafts over the course of a decade. I wasn’t done until I thought the characters were real and believable. And flawed.”
Characters in a book have to be believable, and as such, they’re not always good and bad, but mixtures of both, Roit explained.
“A lot of times people put characters in books and they’re one-sided. Real people have their challenges and faults. Their flaws and strengths show their true colors, and people can choose to give into those flaws and weaknesses. Other characters choose the wrong things. We all confront those choices in life.”
“The Oregon Project” is a mystery set against the backdrop of a district attorney who is in cahoots with organized Chinese crime, and a complex real estate scam that duped innocents out of millions of dollars. Roit tells the story based upon her intimate knowledge and experience with California law and those who break it.
“‘The Oregon Project’ is a novel about several people caught up in a situation that starts with a murder. They all have different ambitions and different lives, resulting in a traditional struggle between right and wrong, and the grey areas in between,” Roit said. “There’s a political struggle between the district attorney and the assistant D.A. An art dealer struggles with her own demons and all of these people come together because of the Oregon Project. You’ll have to read it in order to find out what that is. I’m not going to give away the ending.”
Roit grew up in the former Soviet Union and immigrated to the United States when she was 14 years old.
For the past seven years she has lived in Malibu. However, her real home is the courtroom.
“I represent chiefly victims of violent crime and usually underdog cases-leveling the playing field cases is what I call them,” Roit said.
Natasha Roit’s accomplishments in the courtroom have brought what she called record financial settlements for her clients. After earning the prestigious Clay Award, which named her California Trial Lawyer of the Year in 2003, Roit went on to be named one of the top 50 Female Attorneys in California by the Los Angeles Daily Journal, a newspaper serving the legal profession, in 2004.
“I’m in the middle of another novel about a Secret Service agent who was helping take care of the president when he decides to quit over the death of his brother in the Iraq war,” she said. “He winds up coming back into the president’s service because of events in the novel,” which, of course, she isn’t giving away.
And while it’s easy to see parallels between the events in “The Oregon Project” and what Roit does every day in the courtroom, it’s a little hazier when it comes to dealing with events involving the Secret Service, the president of the United States and the nation’s secretary of defense.
“I’m doing this through extensive research and with a lot of help from other people,” Roit said. “I’m also working from a great love I have for this country. I’m an immigrant and what happens here is especially important to me.”
Roit said she doesn’t expect to spend 10 years writing this one, but once again, it will be done in time she spends outside the courtroom, and the release date is one of those things, as in a good mystery, you won’t find out until the last page.
Roit will speak and sign copies of her book Nov. 1, beginning at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes & Noble on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica.