A unique cat-and-mouse case with a thrilling premise but lack-luster pacing and an obnoxious protagonist.
Summary:
Defense attorney Eddie Flynn is brought in for a special celebrity murder case, one of double homicide of which he knows his client is innocent. What he doesn't know is that the real murderer (Joshua Kane) has posited himself onto the jury to make sure the guilty verdict goes through. And he will kill as many times as he needed to make that happen.
Verdict: 6.5/10 (didn't mean for this to be exactly half of 13, but it's fitting as I liked it half as much as I should)
By all accounts, I should have loved this book. It had lawyers, legal loopholes, serial killers, hidden clues, criminal psychology, and plenty of murder. It just seemed a little too much to be believed. While the action was fairly far-fetched, that part I could overcome. What I struggled with the most was the characters.
To be fair, I didn't realize this was the fourth (or fifth if you count the novella) in the Eddie Flynn series, following the courtroom drama of the defense. So maybe that explains why it felt like Cavanagh was trying to fit so much in. I mean, a lawyer/ex-con with a troubled past, a daughter, and a possible divorce is a lot to pitch for a first read. If I had time to get to know Eddie before I may have understood. However, if you have to talk up a main character and state that he's the best, you've missed the mark. Literally multiple quotes trying to convince the reader that this is the ultimate. Such as:
“(Kane) had seen it before. Never like this. Flynn, out of all the defense lawyers he’d seen in action, was clearly the best” - Cavanagh, pg. 273
Eddie casually takes one look at a dollar bill and figures out the serial killer's clues before the FBI? When the agents have been scouring over them for months? And he consistently dumbfounds other FBI agents by figuring out the link between the cases or that the killer would be on the jury (all veritable leaps of knowledge)? Just a pet peeve of the unbelievable hero. Cavanagh tries to give him a flaw in the form of alcoholism, but even that never comes up as a real issue. Oh and did I forget the fact that he just happens to know how to box and can beat up a whole squad of trained cops? Seriously?! Of course he's a pro boxer too!
Despite my issues with the main man Eddie, the plot was clever. The clues were smart and well-hinted at from the start. I also enjoyed the courtroom setting, how the prosecutors and Eddie analyzed the evidence and found different sides to it or ways around it. And the last couple twists were excellent, two in particular made me want to go back and reread portions to see how it changed my understanding of the events.
However, the author over-dramatized any intelligence out of it. For instance, groundbreaking evidence like the mattress density sounds like it will 'crack the case wide open', but then on the next page, Eddie says they’re probably still going to find Bobby guilty. It feels like a forced perspective of doubt, trying to make the reader feel like they're on a rollercoaster. Really it seems fairly straightforward to me.
Also for having so many murders in this book, it strangely didn’t seem action-packed. The sheer amount of deaths lessens their impact. If there’s a death every 20-30 pages, it goes from "wow, never saw that coming!" to “oh look, another one...”
I did enjoy the book despite all the complaints. It just irks me because I know that the good premise could have made a great mystery-thriller if it had been better written.
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