Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Hidden Man by David Ellis

 

The Hidden Man (Putnam, 2009) by David Ellis is the first legal thriller about Jason Kolarich, an attorney in an unnamed Midwestern city that sounds a lot like Chicago. Kolarich is reeling from the loss of his wife and child in a car accident four months earlier and is barely functioning when a slick stranger named Mr. Smith gives him a briefcase full of cash to defend Kolarich’s childhood friend Sam Cutler in a murder trial that is scheduled to begin in a month. Cutler’s baby sister was taken from her room one night about 25 years ago, and Cutler is accused of shooting the man who was believed to have kidnapped and killed her but who was never convicted.

Smith tells Kolarich that he will be directing the defense but Kolarich doesn’t understand Smith’s interests. Cutler claims not to know anything about Smith and is deeply suspicious of his motives. Kolarich maps out his own strategy and implements it over Smith’s escalating objections. He is developing an understanding of the case, considering potential defense strategies, and attempting to interview witnesses while overwhelmed with guilt and grief and realizing that his younger brother is likely using drugs again.

Kolarich is not the typical protagonist of legal thrillers. He grew up in a rough neighborhood and would have started down a path of petty crime as a teenager had the football coach not recognized his outstanding athletic ability and diverted his energies. He managed to attend college on a football scholarship, where his quick temper got him into more than a little trouble but he still managed to graduate and go on to law school. Kolarich is an original thinker and seldom does what anyone expects him to do, which brings him into direct conflict with Smith but helps in the execution of courtroom strategy.

An original story with a couple of imaginative and unexpected plot twists turn this into a very good legal thriller. Starred review from Publishers Weekly.

 

·         Publisher: Putnam Adult

·         Publication date: ‎September 3, 2009

·         Print length: ‎336 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎0399155791

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-0399155796

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4evauCe

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2025

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Denial: A Novel by Beverley McLachlin

 

From 2000 to 2017, Beverley McLachlin was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. She is the first woman to hold that position and the longest-serving Chief Justice in Canadian history. McLachlin is also the author of three legal thrillers about Vancouver defense attorney Jilly Truitt and a memoir, Truth Be Told, which won the prestigious Writers’ Trust Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing and the Ottawa Book Award for Nonfiction. In 2018, McLachlin became a Companion of the Order of Canada, the highest honor within the Order.

In Denial (‎Simon & Schuster, 2021) the second book about Jilly Truitt, Jilly has finally reached the point in her legal practice that she does not have to take every case that comes along to keep the lights on. She can pick and choose and she tends to take only those cases that she knows she can win. So when Joseph Quentin asks her to defend his wife Vera, who has been accused of killing her very ill mother, Jilly’s instincts are to say no. Vera was alone in the house with her mother the night she died and there doesn’t seem to be any question about who administered the lethal dose of morphine. Quentin is a lawyer himself and well known as a fixer of all kinds of problems. If he can’t persuade his wife to take a plea deal, after two other lawyers have resigned in frustration, Jilly doesn’t know that she can help, but Quentin pressures her and she agrees to meet with Vera.

Vera convinces Jilly that she did not kill her mother, despite all the evidence against her, and Jilly agrees to take the case. The judge will not allow further delays in the trial process and Jilly has only three weeks to prepare a defense so she calls in an investigator and they go into overdrive. Jilly looks at the victim’s will which seems straightforward until she learns that a lawyer had visited her on her last day alive and no one knows why. Then she discovers a few holes in the police investigation which introduce an element of doubt. It was still a thin case and the prosecutor is a formidable courtroom presence who plays every trick in the legal book.

The Canadian court system is more similar to that of the U.S. than the English one so the process described here is not as difficult to follow as some of the English legal thrillers are. The forceful courtroom dialog could only be written by a subject matter expert. Jilly is a likable and sharp-witted protagonist, and her supportive staff make a good foil for her foibles. A human trafficking subplot is worked smoothly and all too credibly into the larger story. Fans of legal thrillers will want to add these books to their TBR lists.

·         Publisher: ‎Simon & Schuster (September 14, 2021)

·         Language: ‎English

·         Paperback: ‎384 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎1982104996

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-1982104993

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3DukEFa

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2025 

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The 7th Canon by Robert Dugoni

Robert Dugoni has been on my to-read list for awhile. He is a productive and creative author, nominated for every major crime fiction award and winner of several. He is most known for his Tracy Crosswhite police series set in Seattle; the 11^th book will be published in 2025. His first series was a set of legal thrillers with David Sloane and then he dipped into espionage with his Charles Jenkins books. Most recently he has begun a series about Seattle defense attorney Keera Duggan. He has also written several stand-alone thrillers.

The 7^th Canon (Thomas & Mercer, 2016) is one of his stand-alones. It features San Francisco defense attorney Peter Donley, who is suddenly pinch-hitting for his uncle in a murder trial. Not just any murder trial, the priest who set up and ran a controversial shelter for street youths in the sordid Tenderloin district has been accused of killing one of his inmates days before Christmas. The prosecuting attorney is campaigning for the governor’s chair and has a lot riding on a successful conviction. Donley is inexperienced but not so naïve that he doesn’t recognize when the evidence does not add up.

Donley is another fictional lawyer who believes in doing his own research. Most of the book centers on his investigation and his hunt for witnesses and crucial documentation, little of it takes place in a courtroom. The plot is a bit predictable but the characters are outstanding, original and well-rounded. Set in late 1980s San Francisco, not all that long ago, the places and streets mentioned remind the reader that things have changed in the intervening 35 years, as does the lack of references to cell phones and laptop computers. Fans of Dugoni’s other books should not overlook this one. Followers of legal thrillers in general should add it to their reading lists.

·       Publisher: ‎Thomas & Mercer (September 27, 2016)

·       Language: ‎English

·       Paperback: ‎333 pages

·       ISBN-10: ‎1503939421

·       ISBN-13: ‎978-1503939424

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link:  https://amzn.to/4evYbov

  

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2024 

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night. 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Enemy Inside by Steve Martini

A long holiday weekend is the perfect time to kick back with an absorbing legal thriller. I found it in one of Steve Martini’s later books. Martini is a master of complex plots and his ability to create deliciously byzantine problems shines in the 13^th book about criminal defense lawyer Paul Madriani, The Enemy Inside (William Morrow, 2015). Madriani’s daughter asks him to defend a friend, Paul Ives, who has been arrested for vehicular manslaughter.

Police believe Ives was driving under the influence and broadsided a car driven by Olinda Serna, Washington, DC, lawyer and lobbyist. Ives survived only because a passing motorist dragged him to safety before both cars exploded into flames. Ives told a bizarre story of being invited to a party in the hills above Los Angeles by a beautiful young woman who promised to meet him there. She did not appear and he has no memory of what happened after taking one drink. That part of his story is supported by the medical tests that showed alcohol barely registering in his system, meaning the DUI charge could not be upheld by the evidence.

Unfortunately no one believed Ives enough to test him for roofies and any sign of the date rape drug would have disappeared within a day or so. His story is consistent with having been drugged, but there’s no supporting evidence, and Madriani began searching for the party site and anyone there who might have seen Ives that evening.

Ives was an investigative journalist working for a political scandal sheet and Madriani also began asking questions about his current assignment, wondering why he should have been so obviously set up. His inquiries took him across the country to Washington, DC, and from there to Switzerland, where he learned all about numbered bank accounts sheltering U.S. money from IRS scrutiny. Of particular interest are those accounts owned by PEPs, Politically Exposed Persons, or those individuals who are susceptible to bribery or corruption by virtue of their position within the government. Serna had been a specialist in financial and banking policy and Madriani began to see a pattern.

A convoluted tale of greed, politics, paid killers, lethal technology, and international intrigue, still relevant 10 years later. Parts of the story dealing with global economics are eerily prescient. Highly recommended for fans of legal crime fiction, financial thrillers, and geopolitical espionage.

 

 

·       Publisher: ‎William Morrow; 1st edition (May 12, 2015)

·       Language: ‎English

·       Hardcover: ‎384 pages

·       ISBN-10: ‎006232893X

·       ISBN-13: ‎978-0062328939

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3Z675nU 

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2024 

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Witness 8 by Steve Cavanagh

The 8^th book in the very fine Eddie Flynn legal thriller series by civil rights lawyer Steve Cavanagh is finally available. Released in the UK in August 2024, it won’t be sold in the US until March 2025. Fortunately bookstores in the UK will ship to the US, for a price of course, and I did not have to wait until next year to read it. Cavanagh lives in northern Ireland but he sets his books in New York.

Margaret Blakemore was shot in her home in an upscale New York City neighborhood one night. An anonymous phone call to the police said that the killer was John Jackson, relative newcomer to the street. Jackson was home alone, with his family out of town. A search of the Jackson house turned up the murder weapon, which Jackson said he didn’t own and had never seen before. The prints on it were not his, yet the DNA found on it was.

Jackson is a pediatric surgeon at New York University Hospital and has the money to hire the best law firm in the city. They in turn retained Eddie Flynn because of his record of success in capital murder cases. Flynn’s investigators set out to learn everything possible about the victim and the evidence to find something the police had overlooked. Jackson is reeling from the accusation. He and his family recently moved to the street and know few people as yet. There is no obvious connection between them and Blakemore.

In a parallel story line the anonymous caller is revealed to be Ruby Johnson, the Jackson’s part-time child care provider who worked at several houses in the wealthy neighborhood where maids and au pairs and nannies were routine. While Ruby’s outward demeanor radiated helpfulness, inwardly she was doing everything she could to set Jackson up as the culprit. The overriding question of course is why? She barely knew the Jacksons, had not worked for them long, and could not possibly have cause to wreck their lives. Yet wrecking them she is. The hospital suspends Jackson, who lived for his work with desperately ill children, and then the neighbors begin to pressure the family to leave. The Jacksons are falling apart under the stress and Flynn has no choice but to expedite the trial when he would rather have delayed it.

I wished that the two main characters had more dissimilar names. John Jackson and Ruby Johnson are just too much alike. Otherwise this is another impressive entry in the series. Cavanagh throws one curve ball after another, in the courtroom and out. The explanation for how Jackson’s DNA came to be on the murder weapon is especially slick. In the end, who actually killed Margaret Blakemore and why becomes far less significant than why Ruby Johnson was targeting the Jacksons. When the answer comes, as usual with Cavanagh, it is startling. For fans of legal thrillers and strong mysteries in general. Recommended.

 

 

·       Publisher: ‎Headline (1 Aug. 2024)

·       Language: ‎English

·       Hardcover: ‎400 pages

·       ISBN-10: ‎1035408201

·       ISBN-13: ‎978-1035408207

 

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3YFX2ps

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2024

 

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Dru's Book Musings: New Releases ~ Week of June 30, 2024

 Dru's Book Musings: New Releases ~ Week of June 30, 2024

Dru's Book Musings New Releases ~ Week of March 17, 2024

 Dru's Book Musings New Releases ~ Week of March 17, 2024 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Substitution Order by Martin Clark

Martin Clark is a retired circuit court judge from Patrick County, Virginia, who turned to legal fiction as a retirement occupation. His books have been named New York Times Notable Book, New York Times Editors Choice, Boston Globe Best Book of the Year, Washington Post Best Book of the Year, and winner of the Library of Virginia’s People’s Choice Award in 2009, 2016, and 2020.

The Substitution Order (Knopf, 2019) is an unusual legal thriller with a sympathetic though imperfect lead character. Kevin Moore was a lawyer on the top of the legal pyramid in Roanoke, Virginia, happily married and successful. Until one summer he decided to experiment with drugs and alcohol, things he had previously left strictly alone. In a matter of months, his erratic behavior cost him his marriage and his license to practice law. On parole, he moved to a small town some distance from Roanoke to try to rebuild his life. He conscientiously adheres to the court’s reporting and drug testing requirements while managing a small low-rent sandwich shop.

About a year after his downfall, a stranger approaches Kevin with a proposition. He tells Kevin that one of his last clients is going to sue him for mishandling the case she hired him for, alleging that she gave directions that he failed to follow and that she lost money because of it. All Kevin has to do is accept liability and his malpractice insurance company will pay up. In return Kevin will receive a large sum and behind-the-scenes assistance when he reapplies for a license to practice law. Kevin is incensed at the idea he failed to provide the best possible representation, even when he was using drugs, and declines the offer.

The actors behind the scam turn the screws, and Kevin is set up for failing his next drug test and drugs are planted among his possessions. His probation is revoked and he lands in jail and that’s when he learns that no one believes a word he says. Once a drug addict, everyone including his friends believe there is no rehabilitation.

Instead of the usual courtroom pyrotechnics found in legal thrillers, the legal legerdemain here takes place largely elsewhere, as Kevin maneuvers around the jail sentence and irreversible professional damage he is facing. I had to focus closely to understand the intricacies of the law he invoked and the steps he took to reverse the tables on the grift artists who put him behind the eight ball to begin with.

A fascinating read. For fans of legal thrillers, especially those with knowledge of case law. Publishers Weekly starred review.

 

·         Publisher: Knopf; First Edition (July 9, 2019)

·         Language: ‎English

·         Hardcover: ‎352 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎0525656324

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-0525656326

 

The Amazon Associate thingy is messed up, again, so go here to pick it up. 

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2024

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Dru's Book Musings: New Releases ~ Week of January 7, 2024

Dru's Book Musings: New Releases ~ Week of January 7, 2024 

Dru's Book Musings New Releases ~ Week of October 15, 2023

 Dru's Book Musings New Releases ~ Week of October 15, 2023 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Frame-Up by John F. Dobbyn

John F. Dobbyn taught law at Villanova Law School for over 40 years. He introduced Boston criminal trial lawyers Michael Knight and Lex Devlin in short stories published in Alfred Hitchcock’ Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine before giving them wider scope in longer adventures. Frame-up (Oceanview, 2010) is the second novel about the duo.

A legal thriller that is more thriller than legal, it opens with Michael Knight entering a parking garage a few minutes late to find his best friend John McKedrick waiting for him, pointing at his watch. McKedrick turns the ignition in his car and it explodes into flames. Knight had long been worried about McKedrick’s choice of employer, a lawyer serving the needs of the local mid-level Mafia soldiers. It seems Knight’s concern had been more than justified.

Knight learns that McKedrick had been preoccupied the week before the bombing but no one knew why. Knight continues to ask questions and before he fully realizes it, he’s dealing with members of the local Mafia, the Russian Mafia, his long-ago art professor at Harvard, and some European financiers who don’t ask awkward questions of their clientele. At the heart of the matter is a rare Vermeer painting known to have been stolen from a U. S. museum, millions of dollars, and a brewing revolution within the Boston branch of the Mafia. Just how McKedrick got involved with this imbroglio puzzles Mitchell throughout the story.

This book is a first-rate piece of escapism. Like many of his fictional legal ancestors, Mitchell spends far more time investigating than he does with his law texts or in a courtroom. His escapades take him to London and to Amsterdam where he plans and executes a hair-raising scam in Amsterdam, victimizing a Russian gangster who would happily slice him into bits with little provocation. Mitchell leads a charmed life, though, and skates through the con unscathed. He is blessed with friends who happily jump in to help with whatever he’s up to, including one who dropped what he was doing to fly to Amsterdam to help perpetrate the sting. (I think I have good friends, but I don’t know who I would call for something like that.)

A subplot in which Devlin’s unexpected ties with the local Mafia don are revealed rounds out a meticulously plotted and well written thriller. An excellent contribution to the genre. I am looking for the other five books in the series.

  

·         ASIN: ‎B003YFJ6G2

·         Publisher: ‎Oceanview Publishing; 1st edition (March 8, 2010)

·         Publication date: ‎March 8, 2010

·         Language: ‎English

·         File size: ‎4193 KB

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2023 

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Devil’s Advocate by Steve Cavanagh

The Devil’s Advocate (Orion, 2021) is the sixth book about defense attorney Eddie Flynn. Created by Irish lawyer Steve Cavanagh, Flynn is a former grifter who learned the trade from his father. He abandoned a lucrative life running scams to attend law school and lead a socially acceptable life. A hair-raising encounter with the Russian mafia, related in The Defense (Flatiron Books, 2016), forced him to resurrect his swindler’s tricks and to call on his not altogether honest friends and they have been part of his legal arsenal ever since.

Flynn needs all the help he can get when Alexander Berlin, a high-level U.S. government troubleshooter, approaches him about representing a young man on trial for murder in Sunville County, Alabama. The district attorney there, Randall Korn, is known for requesting the death penalty whenever he can and getting it. His death row statistics are completely out of line with the rural county’s population and are among the highest in the nation. This discrepancy has been noted by the Justice Department and others but so far Korn has skillfully covered his tracks and no overt reason for challenging him presents itself. Berlin hired a lawyer to represent Korn’s latest target and he has disappeared. Berlin thinks he’s been killed and he wants Flynn to take his place, believing Flynn can outwit the underhanded local machinery in Buckstown.

Flynn has an uphill battle. The local hotels won’t rent a room to him and his sidekick retired New York justice Harry Ford, the restaurants won’t serve them. His vehicle tires are slashed, critical evidence that supports the defense is missing, the county sheriff refuses to allow him to see his client. When Flynn does manage to talk to him by getting arrested himself, he learns the sheriff has threatened to hurt the young man’s mother if he talks to Flynn. Civil rights violations abound and Flynn and Ford are in imminent danger. Flynn quite reasonably fears his client may be killed in his cell in a faked suicide.

I tore through this compulsively readable book in about six hours, staying up well into the night. Darker than many legal thrillers, this story has strong overtones of To Kill a Mockingbird but the people here are frighteningly malevolent instead of ignorant. Cavanagh works small town character and U. S. contemporary race issues into a scary and heart-pounding legal thriller that demonstrates clearly just how deeply the justice system can be compromised. Finalist 2022 Steel Dagger Award.

·         Hardcover: 403 pages

·         Publisher: Orion Books, 2021

·         Language: ‎English

·         ISBN-10: ‎1398700177

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-1398700178

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2023

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Motive by John Lescroart

John Lescroart is one of my favorite contemporary U.S. authors. I can’t think of another author who conveys the complexities and contradictions of long-term human relationships better than he does. He claimed San Francisco and its legal and law enforcement community for his own in the 22 (so far) books he wrote about Dismas Hardy, a defense attorney, and his best friend Abe Glitsky, a homicide cop. Lescroart tells complicated stories in clear, down-to-earth language. His plots unfold logically while maintaining momentum. I especially appreciate the realism; Hardy is open about the cost of a legal defense. There’s nothing quixotic about him. I have read all of the books in the series and in the spin-off books about Hardy’s private investigator Wyatt Hunt. I like them so much that I re-read them occasionally.

The Motive (Dutton, 2004) is the 11^th book in the series. It starts with a fire in one of the iconic Painted Ladies, the exquisitely painted Victorian homes near Alamo Square Park. Because of the proximity of the buildings, any blaze threatens the entire neighborhood and galvanizes the fire department. In this instance, the house where it started could not be saved and homes on either side were damaged. In the ashes were found two bodies, each with a fatal bullet wound. They were identified as home owner wealthy Paul Hanover and his fiancé Missy D’Amiens. While it looked like a murder-suicide, the angle of the shots suggested otherwise. The pervasive presence of gasoline clinched the determination of homicide.

Hanover had donated heavily to mayor Kathy West’s election so she pulled strings and had deputy chief of inspectors Abe Glitzky assigned to the case. The lead detective resented Glitzky and his political influence, which slowed the investigation. Then suspicion fell on Hanover’s daughter-in-law, who had been vocally concerned about Hanover’s plan to change his will in favor of his new second wife. She invoked her long-ago relationship with Dismas Hardy to persuade him to represent her. Glitzky and Hardy navigate a rocky path between the shadow of mayoral influence with accusations of political bias and complex personal interactions.

Great detail about arson investigation and fire forensics. Clever misdirection delivers a courtroom bombshell. Glitzky’s and Hardy’s enduring friendship forms the bedrock of this very good series. It’s possible to read these books out of order without losing much context, but they make more sense if read sequentially. For fans of legal thrillers.

 

·         Publisher: ‎Dutton Adult; 1st edition (December 16, 2004)

·         Language: ‎English

·         Hardcover: ‎416 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎0525948449

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-0525948445 

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2023

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.