A ruthless lawyer cross-examines his life after a guilty client walks free in this sharp legal thriller from the bestselling author of The Neon Lawyer.Ruthless defense attorney Tatum Graham has been living large in Miami, but when his recently acquitted client claims another victim, Tatum has a crisis of conscience. Disillusioned, he heads to his small Utah hometown for a simpler life…but that’s … simpler life…but that’s not what he finds.
Soon after he arrives, Tatum’s childhood crush offers him a job at the county attorney’s office and assigns him a murder case. The victim is a teenage girl not unlike the victim in the last case he tried. Now a prosecutor, Tatum sees a chance for redemption, but politics, corruption, and a killer defense threaten to thwart justice.
To complicate matters, Tatum’s estranged father has terminal cancer, and the time to reconcile is running out. Tatum moved to Utah to find clarity, but his thoughts swirl with old feelings and present dangers. As the case heats up, so does the risk, threatening to adjourn Tatum’s new life before it begins.
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Interesting story of corruption and murder in the small town of River Falls, Utah, where everything is outdated and rustic. When Tatum Graham, a highly respected defense attorney from Miami, returns to his hometown to “find himself”, he unknowingly becomes part of the prosecution team for the biggest murder trial to hit this rural community in ten years. While tracking the bad guys, he reconnects with his dying father and the girl he left behind and eventually discovers what’s important in life. Filled with interesting characters and surprises left and right, this was an entertaining legal thriller.
I have mixed feelings about this book. If I could have given it 3.5stars I would have but, I just wasn’t feeling generous enough to round up to 4stars. The story was interesting enough (enough to see it to the end) and was written well enough (with exception of some deficient character development).
However, I just couldn’t stand the MC, Tatum, and since most of the book was about him (it was written from his POV). He was just such an unlikeable character, I just really wanted to skim through so many sections where he was spouting his arrogant and pompous “Art of Trial Jury” crap. Uuuggghhh!!!
Would I ever read anything from this author again? Sure, he’s a good writer. Would I continue to read another book with this MC if it were turned into a series? #%!! NO!!!!!
I received this book through Amazon’s Prime Reading.
This story begins with Tatum just finishing his closing argument and receiving a not guilty verdict. Later he learned that the client that he had just defended was arrested once again. After arriving at the scene, he was troubled and decided that he was just going to up and leave. After informing his law partner he was resigning and telling his old girlfriend that he was leaving and that he had transferred his home and a car to her. He got in his car and just drove off winding up in his old home town that he had left 20 years earlier..
While at his homestead, he was convinced to work in the D.A.’s office on a murder case. The County Attorney was an acquaintance of his and requested his help since all of her people were inexperienced and could use help on a murder case. There had already been an arrest and the case would be going to trial soon. Tatum, never losing a case, didn’t want to lose one now. Following the evidence, he bagan finding flaws in the police investigation and decided he would do it on his own. Eventually he began to peel back the pieces and determined that a specific person was responsible. The attorney for the accused was someone that Tatum had dealt with before. Tatum learned as the case went to trial that the attorney had something up his sleeve. Tatum was eventually able to discover more information that broke the case wide open.
To learn what Tatum eventually discovered, what his tie to the County Attorney was and what happened in the end, then you need to read this book.
I have loved the Victor Methos Jon Stanton mysteries, and this is the first of the legal dramas I’ve picked up by him. Wow. I have to say it was right up there with John Grisham. The story’s protagonist, Tatum Graham, leaves a high powered job in Miami to return to his roots in small town USA, only to be cajoled by his former flame Gates to jump sides and help prosecute the rape/murder of a popular high school girl. He finds that the case is poorly put together, and starts to investigate the now months old murder from scratch, in the interim uncovering clues that the high school girl is not an innocent and has been involved with many of the town’s older high-powered players. Several twists and turns in which you think “this is it” lead to a conclusion I won’t spoil. This book was hard to put down, and keep me reading much later into the night than I should have been awake. I’m downloading more in this part of his series.
Really good read. Big time attorney, small town politics: what could possibly go wrong?
Can you ever go home again? Tatum Graham is a very high powered, very wealthy lawyer in Miami that abhors losing a case. But when a client is found not guilty, only to commit another murder, Tatum has to take a break. He decides to return to the little town in Utah he left, he ran off leaving his Dad, Adam and a young girl he had a crush on behind.
Driving through his old haunts, he stops and sees Gates, his crush from his youth, and hears about his Dad’s poor health. Gates is running for county attorney while trying ti solve a vicious murder of a beautiful girl, Patty.
You see the town though Tatum’s eyes and see the smallness, the simpler lifestyle, and how the brutal murder has affected the town. It doesn’t help that Gates has Jia and Will as her lawyers for the case…both are young, new, and not prepared to face the cameras and attention of the case. Add to that the high profile lawyer, Russell, the defendants have hired, and the lack of evidence due to poorly equipped cops to handle such a case.
Meanwhile Tatum is trying to deal with his Dad’s cancer and his own loss of confidence.
Two men take Patty “home ” from drinking and partying but she is found dead days later. Did Anderson, the rich druggie do it, or did Steve, his friend, or another person? Gates has Tatum help out gathering new evidence, hiring experts and training the two young lawyers.
Patty is not as innocent as portrayed, dated older men for the money to help her father out. Howard, a cop, forgets certain information as do others making the halls of justice a circus. You have the mayor, the school coach and even the new person running against Gates all hiding different truths. You see two excellent lawyers, Tatum and Russell, use the courts to suppress and uncover information. The relationship between Tatum and Adam is poignant and the feelings between Gates and Tatum seem spot on.
Lots of information about trials, evidence, and the assumption of innocence along with escorts, drugs, and families..the good, the bad, and the horrid. And justice is finally served….tight, solid plot, highly believable, characters, great mystery and the story draws you in. 5 stars