The Hidden Man, David Ellis, Putnam, $25.95.
Jason is a former hotshot lawyer who has some kind of personal trauma in his past—what that trauma might be is teased out throughout the book, but the mysterious back story it provides Jason does nothing but make him more interesting as a character, and as a reader, you're more invested in him. You want to find out what happened to him. Jason is now working for himself and is surprised when a "Mr. Smith" asks him to take the case of one Sammy Cutler, accused of killing his sister's kidnapper, and, as it happens, boyhood friend of Jason. Jason feels he owes Sammy, but the time frame, a ridiculous four weeks to prepare for a murder trial, seems off and he resists Smith's attempts to control him.
Mr. Smith has some powerful backers, and whenever Jason fights back, someone Jason cares about is made to suffer. But Jason, like Ellis himself, is smart, and he uses every weapon at his disposal to give his old friend the fair trial he feels he deserves. Despite a good amount of evidence, Jason even feels his old friend may be innocent. Meanwhile, Ellis continues to knit together the threads of Jason's and Sammy's personal lives, upping the ante of the trial outcome and the stakes for Jason himself. The revelations and twists are nicely timed, making turning the pages of the book toward the end an actual necessity. There's one big twist I figured out before the end, but it served to give the book an extra emotional resonance I think it might have otherwise have been missing. All I can say is, the next book by this talented author can't appear too soon.
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