“THE SERIAL KILLER ISN’T ON TRIAL.

HE’S ON THE JURY…

‘To your knowledge, is there anything that would preclude you from serving on this jury?’

Murder wasn’t the hard part. It was just the start of the game.

Joshua Kane has been preparing for this moment his whole life. He’s done it before. But this is the big one.

This is the murder trial of the century. And Kane has killed to get the best seat in the house.

But there’s someone on his tail. Someone who suspects that the killer isn’t the man on trial.

Kane knows time is running out – he just needs to get to the conviction without being discovered.”

… … … …

No words.  Okay, one word. Woah! The word is WOAH!  Thirteen was published last year and it was MASSIVE.  It grabbed my attention then but Mrs-Slow-Reader that I am I’ve only recently gotten around to reading it.  It’s good, really flipping good. I enjoy legal thrillers but they aren’t my go-to sub-genre.  However, Thirteen got me in a choke hold and there was no way I was walking away unscathed.  I read an eARC of Thirteen from NetGalley but that has in no way influenced my review.

So this is the fourth book in the Eddie Flynn series.  I know many people don’t like to start a series a part way through – me included.  Did I feel I was missing some of the back story? Yes, I did.  But the author provides enough information so it’s not a problem.  You don’t have to have read the previous books in the series but I think it would help if you had.  Of course, I now have a much better idea about what I’m missing out on and I will be making a point of downloading and reading the previous books in the series.  It’s FOMO y’ know!

So as soon as I saw the cover of this book I was intrigued.  I love the title (unlucky for some!), I love the tagline (what? how can he be on the jury?!?), the colours are striking and oh boy, that blurb is something else.  Everything about this book is designed to perfection.

Eddie Flynn is about to take on the case of his life.  Hollywood movie start Robert Solomon is accused of murdering his starlet wife and their security guard.  All the evidence makes Bobby Solomon look like a very guilty man.  But Eddie Flynn knows a guilty man when he sees one and he knows that Bobby didn’t do it.  But if Bobby Solomon isn’t the murderer, then who is?  This is no big spoiler here (you’ve read the tagline, right?), but step forward Mr Average-Juror.  Or is he….?  Of all the bad guys in all the books I’ve read over the years (I’ve read a few) the killer in Thirteen was something else altogether.  He’s so evil, so remorseless, so utterly despicable that he made my skin crawl and I loved it!

Would I recommend this book? Definitely. If you haven’t read it then you must! It doesn’t matter if you’ve read the other books in the series or not.  YOU. MUST. READ. THIS. BOOK.  It’s so good and I will be downloading all of Steve Cavanagh’s other books shortly after finishing this review.  It’s tense, very gripping, supremely clever, edge-of-your-seat kind of stuff and I devoured it.

Thirteen by Steve Cavanagh was published in the UK by Orion on 14th June 2018 and is available in paperback, audio and eBook formats (please note, some of the following links are affiliate links which means I receive a small percentage of the purchase price at no extra cost to you): | amazon.co.uk | amazon.com | Waterstones | BookDepository | Goodreads |