Defending Jacob by William Landay

Defending Jacob is a a legal thriller novel by William Landay published in January 2012

Genres

• Legal thriller
• Mystery
• Crime
• Suspense

Plot

The main plot is about a 15 year old, Jacob Barber, who is accused of the murder of his classmate.
Jacob is quiet boy with only a few close friends. His father, Andy Barber, who is the assistant District Attorney investigates the murder of the dead boy who who has been stabbed in a local park. There is pressure on him to leave the investigation when it is found out that the boy is the classmate of his son, Jacob. However, when the few available evidence starts pointing at his son, he is forced to step down. Then begins the legal battle of proving that his son is not guilty.
In the course of the trial, secrets are revealed that may threaten his marriage. He also realises how little he knows about his own son.

My thoughts

May contain minor spoilers.
I am a great fan of thrillers, especially crime thrillers. The suspense of this book really kept me hooked till I finished the whole book. It's one of the few books that I finished in one go without putting it aside.

The pace was a bit slow, however, the suspense forced me to keep on going. The good thing was that it was not too slow. Something new usually comes up before you start getting bored.

It was interesting to see the role of Andy, the assistant District Attorney, in the story. Andy who is usually trying to prove people guilty takes the role to defend Jacob and try to prove him not guilty. He is also forced to exploit the loophole of 'guilty beyond reasonable doubt' that is applied in criminal cases.
I also voted it as one of my top 5 thriller novels of 2012.

My rating: 5 out of 5.

Recommended to

I would recommend this novel to anyone who likes crime and legal thrillers. I would also recommend it to anyone who likes mystery and suspense novels.

Have you also read Defending Jacob? Do you agree with my review? If not, what are your thoughts on the novel? Would you recommend any other similar novels to me? How would you rate the novel? Let me know through the comments.

Top 5 Thriller Novels of 2012

There are a lot of novels out there, especially from the thriller genre, that it is impossible to read all of them. Here I only list the top 5 of the novels I read which were published this year. I had a hard time in choosing the top and even a harder arranging the top books in the order, as they are all fast paced, full of suspense, with great story and all of them make great thrillers. I could have easily given all of them no.1, but I had to rearrange them somehow so..

5. Defending Jacob by William Landay

Defending Jacob is a legal thriller. Andy Barber, formerly an assistant district attorney, sets out to defend his son, Jacob, as he becomes charged with a murder of his fellow student. As the case continues, Andy becomes shocked at how little he knows about his own son and as more of Andy's past is forced to reveal, his family is in danger of breaking down.

4. The Eden Prophecy: A Thriller by Graham Brown

This novel is the third of the Danielle Laidlaw series. After a U.S. Ambassador contracts a virus after opening a threatening letter and a rogue geneticist is found dead after getting tortured, Danielle Laidlaw, an NRI operative, and Hawker, an ex-CIA agent and former mercenary, sets out to investigate.

3. Nocturnal by Scott Sigler

This is the first paranormal thriller I had read and it really did made a great read for me. Homicide detective Bryan Clauser and his partner Lawrence "Pookie" investigates some gruesome serial murders taking place in San Francisco. The strange thing is Bryan discovers the murders through his dreams and describes them accurately before even reaching the crime scene. Even more stranger is the fact that their superiors want to keep the two from discovering the truth. Read the novel as you find the dark secrets behind the murders.

2. Trust your eyes by Linwood Barclay

This is second novel that I read this year and I came across it by pure chance. The novel tells a story of Thomas Kilvride, a map-obsessed schizophrenic. He travels the whole world without stepping outside his room using a site, Whirl360.com. However, everything changes when he sees what looks like a woman being strangled in New York through the site. Without realising, Thomas and his brother Ray, has stumbled upon a conspiracy and now, even though oblivious of the fact, they are in a danger they could have never imagined.

1. The Prophet: A Shepherd Thriller by Ethan Cross

The novel is the second of the series, The Shepherd. This is the story which involves two serial killers, a doomsday cult, a vigilante group and of course the FBI. What better mix can we have? The main story involves Special Agent Marcus William, who is part of a vigilante group known as the The Shepherd, going after another serial killer known to him as the Anarchist. However what they don't realise that the Anarchist is just a small part of a something much bigger. However that's not the only trouble Marcus faces. Francis Ackerman Jr., who is also another serial killer, tries all he can to help Marcus, and Marcus is highly disturbed by this. All this leads to great twists and never-ending suspense in the novel The Prophet.

I will post more detailed reviews of the all the five novels in the course of the week. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy reading the above novels if you have not read them yet. If you have read them, how did you find the above books? Do you also feel that they deserve to be the top 5? Are there any other books you feel should be on the list? Let me know through the comments.

Dexter's Debut by Jeff Lindsay Coming Soon

I have read and enjoyed all the books in the Dexter series so far. I have also watched the Dexter TV series, through which I found out that there were Dexter novels. I can't wait for this one to come out so I can read it as well. The expected publication date is early March this year.

Here's the short description of the book.

Cop shows are bringing revenue to Miami and Dexter Morgan is asked to be an advisor for the filming of a new show on top of his regular job as Miami PD's blood-spatter analyst. But things take a distinctly dark turn when the leading actress on the show keels over from a very real bullet on set in front of him. With the press going crazy that the murder took place under the very nose of Miami's finest, Dexter and Debs are under pressure to wrap the case. When their lead suspect turns up dead, and then Rita and Cody are found bound, gagged and barely alive, Dexter knows he's well and truly met his match...

Are you also a Dexter fan and waiting for this book?

Zero Day by David Baldacci.

Zero Day by David Baldacci

Genres: Thriller, mystery, crime, action.

Sometimes after you read a book, you instantly want to check more books from that author. That's exactly how I found Zero Day. I read Absolute Power  also by David Baldacci (which I will talk about it in a later post since I read it some time back) and loved it so much that I decided to check out more books from him.

So here's a very brief summary of the story:

John Puller, top investigator in the US Army’s CID is assigned to investigate a homicide involving Reynolds, who was about to retire from DIA, in Drake West Virginia. He teams up with a local cop, Samantha Cole. After some investigation, they realise that nothing is what it seems and the homicide is related to something far worse that they can imagine.

I found the story enjoyable to read. It was also full of suspense. Once you start reading it, you can't stop. Whenever I got free time, I picked up that book to continue reading it.

The other good thing about the story was that it wasn't too slow. The moment you start having the feeling that you are going to get bored, something new turns up.

There was also good character development by giving background information and relations between other minor and major characters. There was background story for almost each of the character in the story.

To reduce the tension while reading, there was also a bit of humor in the story. Not something that will make you laugh so hard that your stomach starts hurting, but enough to make you smile even in the midst of so much tension from the climax of the story.

There was only one minor downside I found in the story. I felt it was giving too much unnecessary information I some parts. For example there is a dream which Puller has. It gives so much detail that I sometimes just skim through it so that I can finish reading that part quickly. There were also descriptions of some of the weapons he uses. I felt that those were not really necessary and I just skimmed through it. However it still didn't affect my views towards the general story.

The ending of the story was also awesome. I didn't except anything like it. There were also other unexpected twists.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

How would you rate this book? Are your thoughts on the story the same as me or different? If you liked this, which other similar book would you recommend? Your comments are most welcome.