Thirteen by Steve Cavanagh @SSCav @Orion_Crime #Thirteen #ThatBookThatHook

Source: Purchased copy

Publication: 25 January 2018 from Orion

 

THE SERIAL KILLER ISN’T ON TRIAL.

HE’S ON THE JURY…

To your knowledge, is there anything that would preclude you from serving on this jury?’

Murder wasn’t the hard part. It was just the start of the game.

Joshua Kane has been preparing for this moment his whole life. He’s done it before. But this is the big one.

This is the murder trial of the century. And Kane has killed to get the best seat in the house.

But there’s someone on his tail. Someone who suspects that the killer isn’t the man on trial.

Kane knows time is running out – he just needs to get to the conviction without being discovered.

 

Well, Steve Cavanagh has smashed this one out of the park. Eat your heart out John Grisham, Thirteen is a beezer!

It isn’t just the hook, which is in itself pretty damned clever, but the whole tightly plotted, brilliantly thought through storyline that twists and turns until you have doubled back on yourself so often you start to get dizzy.

I love a good legal thriller; they’re amongst my favourite crime novels and Eddie Flynn is a terrific character. Con man turned lawyer, but with a heart so big that it just will not let him see an innocent man convicted.

Bobby Solomon is a movie and reality TV star accused of murdering his wife Ariella and his Head of Security, Carl Tozer in a double murder which left them naked on the bed in the bedroom of Bobby’s home. Eddie is called in by the studio’s rich lawyer Rudy Carp who knows that Eddie can be helpful, not necessarily for the right reasons, and is easily expendable.

Though this isn’t Eddie’s usual style, he agrees to work with Rudy, partly out of a belief in Bobby’s innocence, but also because his own marriage is on a very shaky nail and he manages to lever a full time job from this contract out of Carp, which he hopes will be the key to securing his reconciliation with his wife and daughter.

Circumstances change, however and Eddie and his client find themselves facing this trial with fewer resources than they had envisaged. Eddie’s opponent, Prosecutor Art Pryor is the best there is and though Judge Harry Ford is unexpectedly presiding over this trial, there’s no comfort there from this independently minded lawman.

But his biggest adversary is Joshua Kane, the highly intelligent psychopath who thinks his crimes through in such detail that he plans for every eventuality and has a back-up plan just in case. Kane is a terrific antagonist, a great foe and a man who will stop at nothing to achieve his goals. It’s not often I find myself admiring a murderous villain, but this one really does take the biscuit.

Cavanagh’s writing keeps you enthralled and on the edge of your seat as you try to work out what just happened and what’s coming next.

Thirteen is gripping, compelling, a brilliant read and absolutely belongs on everyone’s must read list.

As Rugby commentators might say, Cavanagh has grabbed this book by the short and curlies and kicked it straight into touch.

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About Steve Cavanagh

Steve was born and raised in Belfast, Northern Ireland. At 18 he moved to Dublin and studied Law, by mistake, and went on to be a pot-washer, bouncer, security guard and call centre operative before landing a job as an investigator for a large law firm in Belfast, where he eventually qualified as a solicitor. He then moved to a smaller firm where he could practice in the field of civil rights law. Steve has been involved in several high profile cases; in 2010 he represented a factory worker who suffered racial abuse in the workplace and won the largest award of damages for race discrimination in Northern Ireland legal history. He holds a certificate in Advanced Advocacy and often lectures on various legal subjects (but really he just likes to tell jokes). Steve is also one half of the hysterically funny podcast duo, Two Crime Writers and a Microphone. If you haven’t heard Steve and his partner in crime, Luca Veste, then you really should subscribe!

Follow Steve on    @SSCav