ARC BOOK REVIEW: Abiding Conviction by Stephen Murphy

Publication Date: July 5, 2022 Format: Kindle  Genre:  Legal Thriller

Publisher: Ocean View Publishing Length: 289  pages Buy:  Kindle

Synopsis

Dutch Francis is a defense attorney in the case of a judge accused of killing his wife. Just as the trial is about to begin, Ginnie Turner, Dutch's wife and TV news broadcaster, goes missing.

Under extreme duress, Dutch tries to extricate himself as the judge's attorney—or at least postpone the trial. The judge insists that the trial proceed without delay and that Dutch remain his attorney.

Exhausted by the murder trial, Dutch confronts an ineffectual police department, suspicious that he is involved in his wife's disappearance. He takes matters into his own hands as he struggles to balance both responsibilities—the trial and finding his wife—pushing him to the brink of losing everything he holds dear.

At first Dutch suspects that Ginnie was kidnapped in retaliation for her recent stories about sex scandals. But after receiving bits of her in the mail—fingernails, hair—he realizes the kidnapper's intent may be to punish him.

Could his defense of the judge be the reason?

Review: 

I received a free advanced copy of this book through Netgalley.com and I am voluntarily leaving an honest review. 

I love a good legal thriller but this book was a struggle for me.  I felt like everything was rushed.  Maybe its because I didn't read the first 2 books in this series but I didn't know enough about Dutch to really care much about him and the judge he was defending was a less than sympathetic character.  In fact the whole murder case was so ridiculously simplistic I can't imagine it getting to trial, the evidence was so subjective I could see several ways it could have happened.  Then there is the kidnapping of Dutch's wife.  The police were so incompetent with nothing holding them back it was almost laughable.  I knew who had the wife as soon as she was missing and if they had interviewed Dutch and really looked into it they would have too.  I also struggled that just as the trial ends Dutch receives his final note from the kidnapper leading him to discover their identity.  It was just all a little to neatly wrapped up and simple.  I also find it hard to believe that a judge would require an attorney whose celebrity newscaster wife is kidnapped to defend someone of first degree murder.  There were just too many things that jumped the shark for me on this one.  

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