Some strengths and some puzzles in Cartwright's novel

One amusing aspect of Justin Cartwright's novel The Promise of Happiness (2004) comes from his sly, occasional use of postmodern techniques, for ex. at one point, during a rainstorm, one of the characters reflects that he/she hates the pathetic fallacy, that literary device in which the weather matches the mood of the character or the direction of the plot - rainstorms, blizzards, tornadoes etc. At another point in the novel, as one of the young women is struggling through the process of breaking up w/ her boyfriend/lover, a married man about 30 years older than she, the woman reflects that she feels as if she's a character in a chick-lit novel - funny, because she is a character in a novel, though clearly not a novel in that genre. So, as noted in previous posts, there are many things I like about this novel, in particular the delineation of character, and its successful portrayal of a family under great emotional stress, as the characters, each in his or her own way, deals with a complex web of love (and sexual) relationships, though I have trouble w/ certain parts of the narrative, in particular I still don't understand why (or I don't believe that) the older daughter would get involved in an art-theft scheme and would take the fall, allowing her no-good boyfriend to walk away; in particular, I think Cartwright doesn't have a clear understanding of the U.S. system of justice - for ex., why would the judge in a trial be extensively questioning the testifying witness? - and he has a condescending attitude toward Americans in general, for ex., implying that the jury members in the art-theft trial were overweight (so what?) and incompetent, too easily bamboozled by a colorful witness for the prosecution.