History Literature / PaulSinclair

* PetTheDog: Garcia telling Paul turning in Silver was the right thing to do.

* RedeemingReplacement: All three of Wakeman’s successors as captain of the Michealson, especially Hayes.

* RedeemingReplacement: All three of Wakeman’s sucsessors as captain of the Michealson, especially Hayes.

%%* ProfessionalButtKisser: Bill Mahris and Sam Yarrow.

* IncorruptiblePurePureness: Paul Sinclair is exposed to plenty of potential {{cynicism catalyst}}s (his fiancée being wrongfully accused of treason, his captain committing a war crime out of stupidity, almost being scapegoated for what happened in the second book himself) but continues to hold onto his ideals and works to see justice done.

* LivingProp: there’s always one or two silent members during each court martial although some (like Mahris in Against All Enemies) have their movements described a lot, Juarez in Burden of Proof is never heard from nor mentioned after the members are announced as court commences, and Valdez and Bolton don’t say or do anything of note in the first book.

* ProfessionalButtKisser: Bill Mahris and Sam Yarrow.

** the Members/Jury in every court martial except Jen’s (Admiral Fowler during Wakeman’s and Mashiko and Goldberg during Silver’s stand out) all listen carefully to the witnesses, and ask intelligent questions that delve into the heart of the matter, while, while weighing all of the evidence and witnesses equally.
** Judge "Hang-Em" Halstead is a portrayed as delivering harsh punishments to the guilty and ensuring that the innocent receive every consideration once their innocence is established, while also ruling carefully on arguments of the opposing lawyers. the various judges.

** Lamont, the Marine Commander in ''Failure to Obey'' does a good job of grasping the tactical situation while refusing to judge Sharpe's actions as innapropiate without the support of the facts.

* IncorruptiblePurePureness: Paul Sinclair is exposed to plenty of potential CynicismCatalysts (his fiancee being wrongfully accused of treason, his captain committing a war crime out of stupidity, almost being scapegoated for what happened in the second book himself) but continues to hold onto his ideals and work to see justice done.
* IndestructibleEdible: Tradition simultaneously uses fruitcake "as a warning to all the universe of the awful culinary weapons available to the human race" and emergency rations for any distressed ship that might find in in a million years.
* InspectorJavert: Wilkes, the prosecutor in a just determination. Not so much for going after Wakeman (who is guilty of at least some of the charges both morally and legally) but for the overly aggressive way he goes after Paul on the stands when Paul gives crucial evidence for Wakeman’s defense, even insinuating that Paul should be charged as well over the incident for providing Wakeman bad advice. He's probably not quite bad enough to be an amoral attorney though.
* InsufferableGenius: Falco in Rule of Evidence actually gives correct testimony (in terms of what happened) but comes across as so arrogant on cross examination (as well as having some black marks on his record brought up) that everyone watching is inclined to ignore everything he said.

* ''Failure to Obey'': A short story, following Jen working to defend a former crewmate from the Michaelson accused of failing to obey an order during a terrorist attack, while Paul is away elsewhere.

* AttemptedRape: the charge for the last defendant of the final Captain's Mast in the series. It gets him referred to a court-martial, drummed out of the service and sent to Leavenworth.
* BlatantLies: just about everything that comes out of Alvarez's mouth whenever she appears before the captains mast.

** ''Burden of Proof'' has him working with the prosecution when a new officer is court martialed for events that lead to the death of a sailor. [[spoiler: He is found not guilty of causing the accident, but is found guilty of dereliction of duty and sabotaging the investigation in to why the accident happened, resulting in a dishonorable discharge.]]
** In ''Rule of Evidence'', Sinclair's girlfriend, serving on the USS ''Maury'', is blamed for an explosion that guts her ship. She's almost convicted of the crimes she was charged with, [[spoiler:but is saved at the last moment]] by [[spoiler:evidence of corporate malfeasance involving the actual cause of the explosion.]]
** Sinclair has a more direct involvement in the court martial of a newly arrived Lieutenant in ''Against All Enemies'', who's accused of indirectly responsible for the deaths of many civilians after leaking classified information to a rival country, having worked with NCIS to help them narrow down the suspect list. [[spoiler:He really is guilty, and ultimately cops a plea to avoid execution.]]

* DisasterDominoes: A humorous version happened to Jacobs - one of the crewmen to appear before the captain's mast in ''Rule of Evidence'' - while he was on leave, beginning with him getting a wedding invitation from his old girlfriend, and being too dumb to read the actual names and realize it was someones else's wedding.

** Captain Hayes is the main one, being a skilled tactician who listens to his subordinates, and is willing to back them up when risk is involved (such as ordering an investigation into an Admiral's son in ''Burden of Proof'' while also refusing to get caught up in the suspicion against Jen in the third book.

** Herederez requests perfection from her subordinates but is trying to improve their skills and isn't mean-spirited when they struggle to keep up with her expectations, while also offering Paul career opportunities once she has her own ship.
** Sykes speaks in favor of one of his subordinates when the man is accused of stealing peaches using calm logic and is willing to provide wise words ion advice to Paul on occasion.

%% * IncorruptiblePurePureness: Paul Sinclair.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Quite a few, Hayes, Carr, Herederez, Sykes, Gonzalez, Agee, the prominent figures in every court martial except Jen’s (Admiral Fowler during Wakeman’s and Mashiko and Goldberg during Silver’s stand out), the various judges, Randy Diego (at least in terms of being lenient during a captains mast for one of his people), Lamont, Captain Halis, and Paul himself to his enlisted.

--> '''Agee:''' Oh. You're that guy.
--> '''Agee:''' Oh, you're ''that'' guy too. Damn, Sinclair, you're high-level radioactive. Do you know that?
* {{Foil}} Hayes to Wakeman, arguably. It's especially evident in their different styles of commanding the ship.

* AmoralAttorney: Scott Silver’s lawyer Jones is pretty unlikable and oily. Major Hue in ''Failure to Obey'' seems more interested in convicting a sympathetic defendant spoilers Sharpe than getting justice.

* FamedInStory: Someone explains to Paul that he's this, for his taking hard stances that could potentially be career killers.

%% * AFriendInNeed: Most of the junior officers.

%% * TheMenFirst: Paul nearly slips up in ''Burden of Proof'' with water.

%% * PlayingGamesAtWork: Silver, regularly.

%% * TextileWorkIsFeminine: Carl expects Jen to start knitting, she and Paul are so domesticated.
%% * ThrownOutTheAirlock: The fruitcake, in a New Year's tradition.

%% * UnableToCry: Carl Meadows in ''A Just Determination''.

%% * WeaselCoWorker: Scott Silver. Starting with his pushing off the work of standing watch on the junior officer.

%% * WrongGenreSavvy: Jen warns Paul he's read too many books about knights in shining armor.

* Living prop-there’s always one or two silent members during each court martial although some (like Mahris in Against All Enemies) have their movements described a lot, Juarez in Burden of Proof is never heard from nor mentioned after the members are announced as court commences, and Valdez and Bolton don’t say or do anything of note in the first book.

** Sam Yarrow isn't any better, trying to bait his crewmates into insulting their superiors just so he can get brownie points for ratting them out and professing disagreement with said insults.

* AmbitionIsEvil: Not always, but Captain Wakeman and Admiral Fowler are straight examples.

* Failure to Obey: A short story, following Jen working to defend a former cremate from the Michaelson accused of failing to obey an order during a terrorist attack, while Paul is away elsewhere.

* {{Ambition is evil}}; not always, but Captain Wakeman and Admiral Fowler are straight examples.
* {{Amoral attorney}}: Scott Silver’s lawyer Jones is pretty unlikable and oily. Major Hue in Failure to Obey seems more interested in convicting a sympathetic defendant spoilers Sharpe than getting justice.
* {{attempted rape}} the charge for the last defendant of the final Captain's Mast in the series. It gets him referred to a court-martial, drummed out of the service and sent to Leavenworth.

* {{Crusading attorney}}/{{good lawyers, good clients}}: out of all the defense lawyers to appear, Bashir fits this best (in a more subdued way), as does Carr defending Sharpe in failure to Obey.

* {{Disaster dominoes}} -a humorous version happened to Jacobs -one of the crewmen to appear before the captain's mast in Rule of Evidence- while he was on leave, beginning with him getting a wedding invitation form his old girlfriend, and being too dumb to read the actual names and realize it was someones else's wedding.

* {{Ensign newbie}}: several throughout the series. Randy Diego is a notable example in that while he’s a reasonably competent version of this in his first appearance, in Paul’s opinion he still hasn’t quite grown out of it two years later.

* {{Genius ditz} Jacobs, whose apparently a whiz engineer but otherwise an utter idiot.
* {{Genre shift}}: there's some of this between the books in relation to each court-martial. In book 1 Paul is defending Captain Wakeman for legalistic, moral reasons even though both morally and legally Wakeman is guilty of quite a bit. In Burden of Proof Paul works to implicate someone he correctly believes is guilty. In Rule Of Evidence he’s defending Jen, who is the scapegoat of a coverup, and in the 4th book after the investigation he’s more of an observer and there's a bit of mystery due to both Sinclair and the readers being more unsure of Brad Pullman’s guilt than they were with the subjects of the other three court martials.

* {{Ignored expert}}: two testify for Jen in Rule of Evidence, although neither is much of an expert. See Falco under insufferable genius. The second, Victor Zimmer, testifies about some construction problems he brought to attention but it’s vague as to whether they were related to the reason the ship failed. Also several of these did argue against SEERS being installed ut were ignored.

* {{Inspector Javert}}: Wilkes, the prosecutor in a just determination. Not so much for going after Wakeman (who is guilty of at least some of the charges both morally and legally) but for the overly aggressive way he goes after Paul on the stands when Paul gives crucial evidence for Wakeman’s defense, even insinuating that Paul should be charged as well over the incident for providing Wakeman bad advice. He's probably not quite bad enough to be an amoral attorney though.
* Insufferable genius-Falco in Rule of Evidence actually gives correct testimony (in terms of what happened) but comes across as so arrogant on cross examination (as well as having some black marks on his record brought up) that everyone watching is inclined to ignore everything he said.

* {{Pet the dog}}: Garcia telling Paul turning in Silver was the right thing to do.*{{Pointy-haired boss}}: A few but Morraine, Silver and Wakeman are the most genuinely incompetent and toxic ones.
* {{Professional butt kisser}}: Bill Mahris and Sam Yarrow.
* {{Reasonable authority figure}}: Quite a few, Hayes, Carr, Herederez, Sykes, Gonzalez, Agee, the prominent figures in every court martial except Jen’s (Admiral Fowler during Wakeman’s and Mashiko and Goldberg during Silver’s stand out), the various judges, Randy Diego (at least in terms of being lenient during a captains mast for one of his people), Lamont, Captain Halis, and Paul himself to his enlisted.

* Redeeming replacement-all three of Wakeman’s sucsessors as captain of the Michealson, especially Hayes.

* {{shout-out}}: petty officer Arroyo, who is demoted by Wakeman for stealing peaches even though sloppy record keeping is more likely to blame, is reminiscent of {{the Caine mutiny}}. Both incidents are even used against the respective captains at their court-martials.

* {{suspiciously similar substitute}} Fastow in book three feels like a carbon copy of Alvarez from the first two books; both are malingering drug users who end up before the captains mast.
* Sugar and ice personality-Isakov can be nice or dutiful at times but insulting and standoffish at others, which is the main reason she’s not part of Paul’s circle of friends.
* {{Sympathetic inspector antagonist}}: Carr, when she’s prosecuting Jen (although Jen might disagree, at least until the events of Failure to Obey).

* {{Tyrant takes the helm}}: played with, given the regular rotation of officers. Morraine is the classic definition of a tyrant but her predecessor Garcia was pretty stiff-necked to. Smithee, who takes over a supply officer in the final book, is far less accessible, reasonable and easy-going than Sykes (although by practicing hands off managing he’s not that tyrannical). Kwan, the second executive officer, is an interesting version as he is a bit aloof, demanding and poor tempered but is fairly professional and his predecessor Herderez (while much fairer and smarter) was strict herself.

* GloryHound: Captain Wakeman is focused on making himself known to the Navy's senior leadership, in an attempt to be assigned to a more prestigious post than a space cruiser.

** In ''A Just Determination'', Sinclair realizes that another officer is not this because he's angry about something which has no potential to harm him.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: An explanation offered for certain occurrences aboard the ''Michaelson'', none of which endangered anyone or anything seriously, is ghosts of sailors who have died aboard the ship in the line of duty.

* ConspicuousConsumption: The suspected traitor in the last book spends more than his expected income, but not by so much that it couldn't be explained by being good at gambling between deployments. [[spoiler:At least util his family hires Sinclair's brother, a ''very'' expensive attorney, to join his defense team at the court-martial.]]

* InappropriatelyCloseComrades: Jen advises Paul early on never to break the navy's rules against relationships between crew on the same ship, since it's impossible to keep something like that secret in the cramped conditions on board. [[spoiler:In fact, the two end up breaking those rules themselves, although not too severely]] — an upcoming transfer is about to make the relationship permissible, and [[spoiler:they just get started slightly early (and not on the ship itself).]] The ship's executive officer [[spoiler:figures it out anyway, but is prepared to let it slide.]]

* AfraidOfNeedles: Santiago in ''Burden of Proof'' -- after leading the way in the fire fighting.

* CourtMartialed: The titular character finds himself in courts martial uncomfortably often, one in each book, both as a witness and as an observer under his duties as the Legal Officer of the USS ''Michaelson''.

* FeminineWomenCanCook: There's nothing like a home-microwaved meal.
* AFriendInNeed: Most of the junior officers.

* IncorruptiblePurePureness: Paul Sinclair.

* KnightInShiningArmor: Used for Paul, more than once.
* {{Leader}}: Herdez gives quite a talk on it in ''A Just Determination''.

* TheMenFirst: Paul nearly slips up in ''Burden of Proof'' with water.
* {{Nepotism}}: Lt Silver's father is a Vice Admiral, making people reluctant to take actions to kill his career despite him being totally useless.

* PlayingGamesAtWork: Silver, regularly.

* SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: Why Jen warms to Paul.

* StealthInSpace: With extreme difficulty -- much discussed in ''A Just Determination''.
* TextileWorkIsFeminine: Carl expects Jen to start knitting, she and Paul are so domesticated.
* ThrownOutTheAirlock: The fruitcake, in a New Year's tradition.
* UnableToCry: Carl Meadows in ''A Just Determination''.

* WeaselCoWorker: Scott Silver. Starting with his pushing off the work of standing watch on the junior officer.

* WithDueRespect: Sharpe won't talk with Paul once in ''Burden of Proof''.

* WriteWhatYouKnow / ShownTheirWork: [[Creator/JohnHemry John Hemry]] [[WordOfGod served]] as a ship's [[ClosestThingWeGot Legal Officer]] for a time in the US Navy, and in very much the [[IncompletelyTrained same]] [[ButIReadABookAboutIt capacity]] [[TaughtByExperience Sinclair]] does in the beginning of the series.
* WrongGenreSavvy: Jen warns Paul he's read too many books about knights in shining armor.

** Sinclair has a more direct involvement in the court martial of a newly arrived Lieutenant in ''Against All Enemies'', who's indirectly responsible for the deaths of many civilians after leaking classified information to a rival country, working with NCIS to provide evidence of espionage.

* MeaningfulTitle: Every book is named after a key concept in the US Navy Court-Martial manual, and the relevant passage of the manual that discusses that concept is quoted at the start of the book.

* ItsAllAboutMe: In ''A Just Determination'', Sinclair realizes that another officer is not this because he's angry about something which has no potential to harm him.

* NeverMyFault: Wakeman's personal closing statement in his court-martial consists entirely of trying to pass the blame for his actions on to his junior officers.