BOOK SYNOPSIS
Jackson Berman’s career as a criminal defense attorney was exploding. He was widely reputed to be defender of the innocent and protector of the rights of the guilty. The rightly and wrongly accused wanted him in their corner. But his marriage was imploding. He would stop at nothing to remain in his young daughter’s life, even if it meant giving in to his estranged wife’s whims and demands.
While balancing the highs of his professional life with the lows of his personal life, he took on the most important and challenging client of his career: himself.
Annoying acts of vandalism quickly escalated to attempts on his life. Searching for the person who wanted him dead, he found himself accused of a horrific crime that could send him to prison for the rest of his life. Who would defend the defender?
Certain Truths is a compelling story of one man’s struggle to deal with exaggerations, distortions, and lies, and his search for the peace that comes with living with the truth…no matter how ugly it is.
This fascinating and informative insight into the inner workings of the American justice system is predominantly written from the perspective of Jackson (call me Jax) Berman, a criminal defence attorney who was the father of a adorable and mentally advanced for her age pre-teen daughter called Olivia. While in his professional life he was at the top of his game and constantly in demand by both the innocent and the guilty, his personal life was a daily battle to keep his soon to be ex wife Catherine happy to ensure that he got to spend quality time with his beloved daughter. Whenever he was in the courtroom, Jax was ruthlessly in his defence of whichever client he was being paid to represent at that time. As Jax told one of his clients 'it was Jax's job to resolve the issue of legal guilt, he wasn't built to deal with the moral guilt question' Little did Jax realise that during the course of the story, his own behaviour and reputation would come under the spotlight when he finds himself accused of a terrible crime. Suddenly, the champion for truth and justice has to put his trust in other people to help clear his name and stop everything that he had fought so hard to achieve from being shattered into thousands of tiny pieces.
Jax was a complex individual about whom I had conflicting feelings as the multi layered story unfolded, I loved his devotion to young Olivia, his relatable fears about her burgeoning maturity and how much damage might be caused to her psyche by the collapse of her parent's marriage and the accusations he was facing. I loved how much Jax cared about Bailey,the stray cat that he had rescued and given a home in his offices. I enjoyed the interactions between Jax and his best friend Rick and also with ex policeman turned private investigator Leonard who was my favourite character. I didn't like Jax's high and mighty, smug ass attitude when he was in court representing his clients especially when he was cross examining a witness called Melissa. I know that the treatment of the alleged victims of certain crimes had drastically improved over the years but there are still shocking incidents in which possible victims are questioned for hours, are criticised for the amount of alcohol that they had consumed or their choice of clothing. As if they weren't traumatised enough already, victims are often made to feel as if what happened to them was their own fault or they led their attacker on at some point. This accusation has even been levelled at very young victims of sexual abuse in the past. It's hardly surprising that victims are reluctant to come forwards and report the life changing, traumatic horrors that they have been subjected too by their abuser.
Certain Truths is a intelligently written blend of domestic/courtroom drama and gripping thriller with a realistic plot that contains a number of unexpected twists and turns. I loved how the author included in depth information on each of the descendents giving the reader the opportunity to decide for themselves if that person was innocent or guilty. The story included some edge of your seat action scenes and a moment that seriously pulled at my heart strings. If I'm honest, the story included a bit too much romance for my liking but that's just my own personal opinion. This is a very well written, compelling, informative debut and I look forward to reading more of this author's books in the future.
AUTHOR INFO
PLEASE REMEMBER TO CHECK OUT THE POSTS OF THE OTHER BLOGGERS WHO HAVE STOPS ON THIS BLOG TOUR
No comments:
Post a Comment