Name: The Defence
Series: Eddie Flynn #1
Author: Steve Cavanagh
Publisher: Headline
Format: Kindle
Genres: Thriller, Mystery, Contemporary, Crime, Adult
Noted Tropes: High Stakes, Red Herring, Outsmarting the Criminal
Steam or Spice: None
Rating:
Synopsis: Goodreads
The truth has no place in a courtroom. The truth doesn’t matter in a trial.
The only thing that matters is what the prosecution can prove.
Eddie Flynn used to be a con artist. Then he became a lawyer. Turned out the two weren’t that different.
It’s been over a year since Eddie vowed never to set foot in a courtroom again. But now he doesn’t have a choice. Olek Volchek, the infamous head of the Russian mafia in New York, has strapped a bomb to Eddie’s back and kidnapped his ten-year-old daughter Amy.
Eddie only has 48 hours to defend Volchek in an impossible murder trial – and win – if wants to save his daughter.
Under the scrutiny of the media and the FBI, Eddie must use his razor-sharp wit and every con-artist trick in the book to defend his ‘client’ and ensure Amy’s safety. With the timer on his back ticking away, can Eddie convince the jury of the impossible?
Lose this case and he loses everything.
Review:
After reading Thirteen and realising that I really liked Steve Cavanagh’s writing, I knew I was going to have to go back and read the full Eddie Flynn series. Right off the bat, I loved being back in the world with Eddie Flynn and the chaos that is court room life. Only in The Defence, there was the additional element of chaos – Eddie Flynn has been strapped to a bomb. The case in court is the people vs the russian mob boss – and this had some seriously high stakes!
I found The Defence to be slower than Thirteen, which I suppose given that it was the first book in the series comapred to Thirteen which was book 4, is not all that surprising. It took me a bit longer to get into The Defence, the knowledge I had from how good Thirteen was meant that I pushed through the slow start.
Steve Cavanagh threw a couple of curve balls at us whilst this bomb was ticking down and some caught me off guard and some didn’t. I loved the combination of twists with enough sign posts that you could figure them out and the secret, buried a bit better, clues that led to the bigger twists. This is something that Cavanagh does really well – I can already tell that from the two books I’ve read of his now.
I really liked getting to meet some of the characters that I know obviously become important as I read book 4 first (again to explain – I was told Thirteen was a stand alone, so when I found out it was part of a series I just believed each of the books must be separate from each other). I also enjoyed the interactions between Eddie and the Prosecution lawyer, the FBI and police. Getting to see both the conman and the lawyer going at it was fun – and I hope that he never loses the edge his conman history gives him!
If you’re looking for a great, hooking, crime / mystery, thriller then look no further than the Eddie Flynn series. I cannot recommend it enough! I’m excited for The Plea, Book 2! The premise already sets the stakes pretty high! I feel like the stakes are going to get higher with each book and this is rather exciting!
“The truth has no place in a courtroom. The only thing that matters is what the prosecution can prove.”
Reading With Tyler 
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