The Defence by Steve Cavanagh

 

Rating 3.5⭐s

You can buy The Defence...here

You can find out more about the author...here

• The Blurb...

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 forty-eight hours to defend Volchek in an impossible murder trial - and win - if he 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?

• Our Review...

This novel was the first in what has gone on to become a long and very successful series of books. They all feature the con man turned lawyer Eddie Flynn. I have read a few of the later novels and thoroughly enjoyed them. Reading this novel felt a little like looking back on some old photos and seeing a picture of a gangly, still developing youth from your past who you now know has developed into a strapping, happy, confident man. You can see all the potential in the photo and you can rest safe in the knowledge that that callow did in fact bloom. 

I am quite a lover of courtroom drama, the ultimate battleground of good v evil,  and ex lawyer Mr Cavanagh does not ever fail to deliver an intriguing, twisty battle throughout this book. In addition to the good v bad he adds double jeopardy in the form of consequences (death for Eddie, his daughter and everyone else in the courtroom) and a limited time frame. Like diffusing a bombing as its counting down. You can really feel the pressure that Eddie is under, the author never lets you take a safe breath.

Eddie uses his con man skills honed on the mean streets of New York and makes good use of his high powered contacts on both sides of the law to turn the tables on the pesky Russian gangsters. 

Its a little bit cheesy in places, and over the top. As if you take a thought experiment to its extremes but its good OTT enjoyment.  Would I recommend this book to a courtroom drama lover? Yes but go for the long haul. Read the whole series, which just gets better and better with every book as Eddies builds his ensemble of heroes. 

This, for me felt like being a batman fan then reading his origin story. Do yourself a favour, do it right first time.

• Selected Quotes

"What they all understood was that if they told me they were guilty but that they wanted to fight the case anyway, I could no longer represent them. That was the game."

"Justice is blind, but it can still smell fear."

“Hustling an insurance company was like playing poker with Satan—his house, his rules.”

“You don’t need a bomb to win this case. You’ve already got one—I’m the bomb.”

• About The Author

Steve Cavanagh is an Irish author from Belfast and at the age eighteen he studied law by mistake. He is now the international award-winning author of the Eddie Flynn novels. His debut novel, The Defense, was nominated for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for Thriller of the Year, and The Plea won the Prix Polar Award for Best International Novel. Steve is still a practicing lawyer (someday he’ll get the hang of it) and co-host ofthe chart-topping podcast Two Crime Writers And A Microphone. He has been involved in several high-profile civil rights cases, his Eddie Flynn novels have been published in over twenty countries, he’s married with two young children, and in his spare time he is mostly asleep.