Crime Review
A crime novel that truly turns the genre on it’s head and gives it new life, Steve Kavanaugh shows us the highs and lows of a murder trial through the eyes of his smart assed lawyer Eddie Flynn- good enough to take on the big guys and win, bad enough that he lets his own personal drama overshadow his legal expertise.Our story begins with our mysterious psychopath. We seem him go through the motions of a meticulously crafted plan and know that he’s one to watch. We meet Eddie Flynn. Legal eagle. His client is a prostitute who has been framed by the police for carrying drug paraphernalia. We know Eddie is a little bit shady in the way that he practices law. He sees little loop holes and exploits them in small, yet deceptively clever ways. The case? Dismissed. The client? Happy. The police? Furious. It’s the perfect starting point to the cop versus lawyer theme that runs throughout the book. What about the murder, you ask? A Hollywood starlet is found dead, murdered in bed with her bodyguard. The suspect is the Hollywood golden boy boyfriend. Well of course he did it, because that’s the only possible explanation, right? The characters in the book seem to think so, and glamorous lawyer Rudy Carp is the first one to go “hmm, is it though?”
Rudy is an expensive shark in a suit, hired by the studio to prove Bobby Solomon’s innocence. Rudy is convinced that the police have fixed solely on Bobby as a suspect without bothering to look at anybody else, but cannot directly go after the police without risking a losing case. Cue Flynn’s involvement. If Flynn goes after the police and it backfires, who cares? Problem is, Flynn truly does believe in Bobby’s innocence and believes that the murder is one big conspiracy committed by someone else. He’s right. Our someone else and our mysterious psychopath are one and the very same, and to add a little more gasoline to the fire, he’s also a member of the jury for the Solomon trial, a place he has managed to fake his way onto. He sits back and watches as Flynn begins to point out the mistakes he’s made, provoking a dangerous killer to take action and producing a climax worthy of any movie blockbuster.
On the surface this novel sounds like a Hollywood movie script with absolutely no literary features whatsoever, but Kavanaugh’s writing style and his talent for pacing and character development actually mocks the materialistic Hollywood style, creating a hard boiled piece of detective fiction with a modern update. Kavanaugh’s characters are real yet flawed. Flynn is middle aged and divorced. He cares deeply about his family but finds himself too wrapped up in his own endeavors to pay them more than a fleeting thought. Work is his priority and it consumes him. He is dedicated and reliable and we willingly follow him in the directions that he takes us, even if they teeter on the edge of legality and even if they don’t initially seem to make much sense. He as a character is written as is the book: sharp, clear and consistent, right to the end.
Kavanaugh is especially good at using “show, don’t tell” in order to enable to visualize his characters. He throws us right into the heart of the action without letting us stop for a second to consider what is going on. We are a part of the story now and we have to find out how it ends. The plot is unexpected, as was the ending. As much as we expect our hero to win, and as much as we may predict there’s a hidden conspiracy that only our hero can uncover, it’s no less entertaining to see a different take on the ending and actually find yourself surprised. It’s a rare novel, no matter how cliché it may be, that can achieve that goal.
It’s a book that is as clever and deceptive as the characters it represents, full of action and drama that is included sparsely and only when it is needed. A bit of a hard book to read as you need to concentrate, definitely worth picking up if you want a book to sink your teeth into. Not so good if you have a low attention span or don’t have time to binge read it.
