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stacey_mb

Book of the Week

stacey_mb
10 years ago

Defending Jacob : a novel / William Landay.

Named one of the best books of the year by Entertainment Weekly The Boston Globe Kansas City Star

New York Times bestseller

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, February 2012

Pardon me a minute while I come back down to earth after reading this book! I thought this novel had a slow start, but things rapidly speeded up and I found myself being more and more caught up in the story, anxious to know - is a young teen guilty or murder or not? A couple of times, just when I thought I had reached its conclusion, it wasn't really the end at all! A very intelligently written book with lots of twists and unexpected developments.

Immediately as soon as I finished reading the book, I felt that it would be so satisfying to read it for a second time. Knowing about the book's events and peoples' actions would give a whole new and different perspective on the book, especially regarding the narrator.

Andrew Barber is the sole narrator of the book. He had been an assistant district attorney in Massachusetts for 22 years, and when the book opens, he is being questioned before a grand jury. We find out that "the grand jury decides whether the prosecutor has enough evidence to haul a suspect into court for trial." Barber mentions that this relates to a year-old case of a 14 year old boy who was found dead of stab wounds. It is Barber's son who is the main suspect in the murder.

A portion of the Booklist review: "A 14-year-old boy is stabbed to death in the park near his middle school in an upper-class Boston suburb, and Assistant District Attorney Andy Barber takes the case, despite the fact that his son, Jacob, was a classmate of the victim. But when the bloody fingerprint on the victim's clothes turns out to be Jacob's, Barber is off the case and out of his office, devoting himself solely to defending his son.... Within the structure of a grand jury hearing a year after the murder, Landay gradually increases apprehension. As if peeling the layers of an onion, he raises personal and painful ethical issues pertaining to a parent's responsibilities to a child, to a family, and to society at large. Landay's two previous novels (Mission Flats, 2003; The Strangler, 2007) were award winners, but he reaches a new level of excellence in this riveting, knock-your-socks-off legal thriller. With its masterfully crafted characterizations and dialogue, emotional depth, and frightening implications, the novel rivals the best of Scott Turow and John Grisham. Don't miss it."

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