Why You'll Love This
The client hired Jason Kolarich to prove his innocence — but the real trap was always meant for the lawyer.
- Great if you want: a courtroom thriller where the attorney becomes the accused
- The experience: fast, tightly coiled tension that escalates chapter by chapter
- The writing: Ellis engineers his reveals with surgical precision — misdirection done right
- Skip if: you haven't read earlier Kolarich books — backstory carries real weight here
About This Book
Defense attorney Jason Kolarich has survived courtrooms, conspiracies, and personal loss — but his newest client may be the threat he never saw coming. When a quiet, unsettling loner hires Kolarich to get ahead of a murder investigation, the case seems straightforward enough. Then the bodies keep appearing. David Ellis builds a scenario where the lawyer fighting for his client's freedom gradually realizes the real danger isn't in the courtroom — it's pointed directly at him. The stakes are intimate and relentless, and the paranoia is earned rather than manufactured.
What distinguishes this installment is how Ellis layers the legal procedural with genuine psychological unease. Kolarich is a sharp, self-aware narrator — often the smartest person in the room, which makes it all the more unsettling when the ground shifts beneath him. The prose is clean and propulsive, but Ellis never sacrifices character texture for pace. At 465 pages, the novel earns every turn, tightening its grip through careful architecture rather than cheap twists. Readers who invest in Kolarich as a character will find this entry the most personally consequential yet.
