A legal thriller that pits an ex con turned lawyer against a cunning serial killer. But, this time, the killer isn't on trial -- he's on the jury. This is the 4th in a series but can be read as a standalone.
The first thing you must do when reading this is to suspend disbelief and just go with the flow. The premise is good, the writing is excellent, the case is quite complicated but there were many times I just had to shake my head and say, "SERIOUSLY???" I kept reading.
Film star Robert (Bobby) Solomon is on trial for the murders of his wife and co-star, Ariella Bloom, and their chief of security, Carl Tozer. Eddie Flynn is asked by Solomon's high-powered legal eagle, Rudy Carp, to sit second chair in the "Trial of the Century." Carp wants Flynn on the team to discredit the NYPD cops who rushed to arrest Bobby and offers a lucrative proposition that may be just what Flynn needs to get his life back on track. Flynn agrees, but only because he believes that Bobby Solomon is innocent. If Bobby didn't do it, however, who did? The reader knows. A nasty piece of work, Joshua Kane, is on a mission that makes sense only to him. NO SPOILERS.
I really wanted to love this book given all the hype and stellar reviews I've seen on social media. I even considered reading books 1-3 as I don't like to come in at the 4th book in a series, but I'm glad I just went ahead as I doubt, now, that I'll read those. I just didn't buy into the character of Eddie Flynn, crusader for the good guys, nor did I care for the excessive amount of gratuitous violence in the story. The psychopath, Joshua Kane, wasn't even interesting for his pathology, and I definitely had difficulty imagining that he could manage to manipulate so many things the way he did. Yeah, definitely legal fiction. Sure it was an interesting premise to consider how a killer could get himself seated on a murder trial jury, but having served on them myself over 7 times (and once as foreperson on a murder trial), I can't see it being possible in even the remotest way despite all the dead bodies littered along the way. I love a good legal thriller but, like the law itself, it has to follow the rules. Lots of convent coincidences and a killer who can outsmart everyone with incredible forethought and masterful long range planning with a vendetta that seemed quite lame, but then again, he's just another total whack job of a serial killer.
Should you read it? As I said, I'm a fan of legal thrillers and I like the parry and thrust of good courtroom drama. This has plenty of that. Just absorb it all without questioning if any of it would actually be even remotely possible in a US court. I know I'm in the minority with my lackluster praise for this novel, so I'll leave it here. I don't think I care enough about Eddie Flynn to read more of his adventures in lawyering. It wasn't even that somehow Eddie managed to live through all his near death experiences, it was just, ultimately, that I didn't relate to this whole story.
Thank you to NetGalley and Flatiron Books for this e-book ARC to read and review.
This is the 4th book in the Eddie Flynn series but it can be read as a standalone.
Genre - Legal thriller, courtroom drama, murder trial
No comments:
Post a Comment