From the Shadows
THE NEW SERIES FROM BESTSELLING AUTHOR NEIL WHITE
He hides in the shadows, watching, waiting, until the time is right . . .
Mary Kendricks, a smart, pretty, twenty-four-year-old teacher, has been brutally murdered and Robert Carter is accused of killing her. When defence lawyer, Dan Grant inherits Carter's case only weeks before the trial starts, everyone expects him just to babysit it, but Dan's not that kind of lawyer. He'll follow the evidence - wherever it takes him.
But as Dan and his investigator Jayne Brett look into the case, they discover that there is more to it than meets the eye. In order to do their jobs they need to push the limits of the system, even if it means putting themselves in danger. Together they will get to the truth - whatever the cost . . .
I have often found that authors with no real experience in crime don’t always write criminals with believable humanity and/or their law enforcement characters come off rigid and one dimensional but the rest of the book is good. Then you have those who spent their careers either as law enforcement, attorneys, etc who write good characters that could, and probably, are seemingly based on real people but the rest of the book shows they should’ve stuck to their day jobs; bad dialogue, plot holes, and sentence structure so bad you think they must’ve bribed teachers to pass them through school.
On rare occasions an author like Neil White comes along and creates the whole package. White’s experience as a criminal lawyer shines through in his character development of Dan Grant and Jayne Brett among others. It takes a criminal lawyer to be able to write a good version of one so I often wondered when reading this if there was anything of White himself in how he created Grant. Brett I found very interesting and complex especially from my view point as a woman who has been in an abusive relationship. I felt there was a lot of authenticity in how he described what she felt, how she was dealing with it and the long term impact it can have on her psycho-social development.
There weren’t any obvious plot issues as it kept my attention with intriguing action and a thrilling ending. This was such a fast paced novel I was glued to the pages needing to know how Grant and Brett were going to handle Carter’s case.
White’s writing reminded me a bit of John Grisham’s early days when he used to write those really good legal thrillers that were heavy on needing good characters to pull the story along. So if that’s your thing you really need to check this book out.
Thank you to Netgalley and Bonnie Zaffre for allowing me to review this book.
*synopsis and pic from netgalley.com