A remarkable and compelling courtroom drama.
In Ferguson’s legal thriller, a deputy district attorney must navigate an unexpectedly twisty case.
After college sophomore Haylee Branch is found raped and strangled at her friend Jacinta Cantrell’s father’s mansion in a Northern California suburb, the police immediately arrest a young man named Andrew Rodarte. He tells police that he was at the scene of the crime that night, but that he left before Haylee was killed. Enter John Patrick Howland, a deputy district attorney who narrates much of the novel (along with police detective Mark Wade and Haylee’s mother, Marta). Gradually, Rodarte’s story begins to crumble. He admits at trial to killing Haylee, but says it was a tragic outcome of consensual rough sex; nonetheless, he’s found guilty of first-degree murder and gets a sentence of 25 years to life. That should have been the end of the story—an outcome that provides at least some comfort to the victim’s loved ones. But about a decade later, Rodarte files a habeas corpus plea that offers a new account of events that, amazingly, becomes more believable as the cops and the lawyers dig into it. Readers, too, will find the new development to be quite credible and realistic. The book takes readers all the way to the end of the knotty case, showing that justice can be a very messy thing—a concept that gradually reveals itself to be the novel’s overarching theme.
Ferguson presents his readers with a story that begins as a relatively straightforward Law & Order-style procedural, but soon takes the reader on a ride that turns out to be much wilder than your average TV mystery. The author has nearly two decades of experience as an attorney in Southern California, and his deep knowledge of court proceedings is on full display through his novel’s many twists and turns. His trial scenes show his keen eye for detail, but also showcase his ability to take things at a very slow pace when necessary. At another point, Ferguson presents a speech at a parole hearing that’s a masterpiece of tempered emotion and hard-earned wisdom. His greatest strength as a writer, however, is characterization; his players come across as real people caught up in real lives, and readers are likely to find themselves affected by their tribulations. The author treats his main character, Howland, with especially keen sensitivity, showing him to be a good man who’s far more capable than he gives himself credit for. Certainly, the lawyer would make a fine companion for someone—and on the final page, readers get a hint that that might happen. He also shows a distinct talent for shifting readers’ perceptions by taking characters’ stories in unexpected directions. The prose also shows impressive wit at times, as when defense attorney Ted Stauber is described as caught off guard, “like a cowboy on a skateboard”; at another point, the same attorney is said to look “ready to complete the trial by murdering his client.”
A remarkable and compelling courtroom drama.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2023
ISBN: 9798394718434
Page Count: 385
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Better set aside several uninterrupted hours for this toxic rocket. You’ll be glad you did.
A successful Vermont podcaster who’s elicited confessions from dozens of criminals finds herself on the other side of the table, in the hottest of hot seats, over her own troubled past.
Poe Webb was only 13 when she saw her mother, Margaret McMillian, get stabbed to death by the man she’d picked up for a quickie. Poe had vowed revenge, but how could a kid find and avenge herself on a stranger who’d vanished as quickly as he appeared? In the long years since then, Poe’s made a name for herself as a top true-crime podcaster who routinely invites her guests to tell her audience exactly what they did. Now, she’s being pressed, and pressed hard, by Ian Hindley, whose fake name echoes those of England’s Moors Murderers, to join him in a livestream her fans will find riveting because, as Hindley tells her, he’s actually Leopold Hutchins, the pickup who stabbed her mother 14 times when she failed to use her safe word. Skeptical? Hindley knows endless details about the killing that were never released by the police. If Poe won’t do the broadcast, Hindley threatens to harm everyone she loves: her father; her producer and lover, Kip Nguyen; and her black Lab, Bailey. And there’s one more complication that makes the pressure on Poe even more unbearable. Seven years ago, against all odds, she succeeded in tracking Leopold Hutchins from Burlington to New York and killing him herself. In fact, it’s that murder that Hindley most wants her to talk about. Which bully is more fearsome, the man who’s threatening her or the man she killed?
Better set aside several uninterrupted hours for this toxic rocket. You’ll be glad you did.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781464226229
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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