Witness 8

February 1, 2025
Eddie, formerly a con man, is now a defense lawyer. He usually takes on clients who can't find another lawyer, but this situation is a little different. Dr. John Jackson is accused of murdering his neighbor; Jackson is wealthy, he's represented by a high-priced legal firm, and they have recommended Eddie take lead on the case. Almost immediately after he says he'll do it, the murder weapon is found in Jackson's home, with his DNA on it. Eddie's instincts, honed through years of playing other people, tell him something is fishy--but he's not prepared for what he finds out. Cavanagh's first Flynn novel, The Defense (2015), was a wonderful introduction to Eddie and his unique investigative methods, and each subsequent book has opened up new windows into Eddie's past life; he's become a complex and immensely likable fellow, and we find ourselves actually worrying about him as, here, he might for the first time be disastrously out of his depth. A terrific addition to a series that mystery fans should consider a must-read.

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April 1, 2025
When a New York socialite is murdered, a clever witness manipulates the case. Ruby Johnson has spent her whole life on the same posh block of West 74th Street on New York's Upper West Side. In her childhood, her well-off family lived there, but when she was a teen, her father left Ruby and her mother, and they lost their home. Since then, she's held jobs with various families on the block as a maid and nanny to support herself and her mother, who has medical issues. Late one night, as a party goes on a few doors away, Ruby leaves work and witnesses a murder. She knows the victim--Margaret "Maggs" Blakemore, notorious for her many affairs--and she knows who the killer is, too. (Although the reader doesn't.) But then things get strange: Ruby frames an apparently innocent man, a saintly pediatric surgeon who is one of her employers. The mystery of this novel is less about identifying the killer and more about figuring out why Ruby does what she does. Guiding the reader through it is Eddie Flynn, a wisecracking con man-turned-defense attorney, who has a rather shocking number of people trying to kill him for various reasons. He's also got multiple sidekicks--a wise older adviser, a brilliant female law associate, a fearless detective who doubles as a bodyguard, a former FBI agent with a shady past. It's a promising setup, but the plot bogs down in stereotypical characters (mob guys, corrupt cops, eccentric hit men--yes, plural), repetitive descriptions, excessive exposition, several narrators, and multiple subplots that take us away from the main story for such long stretches that it loses all momentum. Somewhere beneath a clutter of extraneous details lurks an interesting premise trying to get out.

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