A terrifyingly detailed, engrossing tale about what happens when the judicial hammer comes down.
In this debut legal novel, an innocent Wall Street executive becomes the subject of a misguided criminal investigation.
New York, 2012. Emma Simpson, the manager of the Manhattan office of the hedge fund Otis Capital, dashes off an email before leaving work for the day. It’s a routine missive encouraging the members of her team to follow the company’s document retention policy. Then she drives home to her husband and two children on their Hudson Valley farm. One year later, Otis Capital is the target of an insider trading investigation conducted by the United States Attorney’s office, and Emma—without realizing it—has become its primary person of interest. Word comes down that she needs to lawyer up. “Did she really need her own big-shot defense lawyer?” wonders Emma. “The company already had a very expensive law firm with a bunch of former federal prosecutors handling the subpoena. Was there something they weren’t telling her?” And after all, she didn’t do anything wrong. Regardless, Emma finds herself in the sights of two ambitious federal prosecutors—one on the fast track to a prominent career and one afraid that he isn’t—and it might not matter who, if anyone, is actually guilty. The wheels of justice are in motion, and Emma is trapped directly in their path. Shapiro’s prose is clean and fluid, capturing the intricacies of finance law and the emotional states of her characters with equal clarity: “Emma stared at the empty yellow pad in front of her and tapped her pencil on it repeatedly. She felt numb and disconnected from her surroundings. It was as if she had just discovered she’d been living in a simulation for the past forty-five years with no ability to control a destiny that was simply the product of algorithms in someone else’s computer program.” The author demonstrates a convincing familiarity with Wall Street and financial prosecution, and the characters, even the minor ones, are memorably constructed. Emma has frustratingly little control over her own story, which robs the book of some of its potential dynamism but illustrates for readers how powerless an innocent person often is before the law.
A terrifyingly detailed, engrossing tale about what happens when the judicial hammer comes down.Pub Date: March 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-63730-640-6
Page Count: 278
Publisher: New Degree Press
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.
The feds must protect an accused criminal and an orphaned girl.
Maybe you’ve met him before as protagonist of The 6:20 Man (2022): Ex-Army Ranger Travis Devine, who’d had the dubious fortune to tangle with “the girl on the train,” is now assigned by his homeland security boss to protect Danny Glass, who's awaiting trial on multiple RICO charges in Washington state. Devine has what it takes: He “was a closer, snooper, fixer, investigator,” and, when necessary, a killer. These skills are on full display as the deaths of three key witnesses grind justice to a temporary halt. Glass has a 12-year-old niece, Betsy Odom, and each is the other’s only living relative—her parents recently died of an apparent drug overdose. The FBI has temporary guardianship of Betsy, who's a handful. She tells Travis that though she’s not yet 13, she's 28 in “life-shit years.” The financially well-heeled Glass wants to be her legal guardian with an eye to eventual adoption, but what are his real motives? And what happens to her if he's convicted? Meanwhile, Betsy insists that her parents never touched drugs, and she begs Travis to find out how they really died. This becomes part of a mission that oozes danger. The small town of Ricketts has a woman mayor who’s full of charm on the surface, but deeply corrupt and deadly when crossed. She may be linked to a subversive group called "12/24/65," as in 1865, when the Ku Klux Klan beast was born. Blood flows, bombs explode, and people perish, both good guys and not-so-good guys. Readers might ponder why in fiction as well as in life, it sometimes seems necessary for many to die so one may live. And what about the girl on the train? She's not necessary to the plot, but she's a fun addition as she pops in and out of the pages, occasionally leaving notes for Travis. Maybe she still wants him dead.
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781538757901
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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