Reviews with content warning for Slavery - The Cage

The Cage by Bonnie Kistler 352 pages
10 hours and 24 minutes narrated by Piper Goodeve and Chris Andrew Ciulla
Genre: Thriller: Mystery, Psychological, Legal; Suspense, Mystery: Crime
Featuring: Trapped in an Elevator, New York City, Debt, Law Office, Corporate Setting, Police Investigation, Multiple POVs, Multiple Timelines, Slavery, Courtroom, Prison
Rating as a movie: R for violence, adult themes and content
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐¼
My thoughts: 3% - This sounds a lot like The Escape Room by Megan Goldin. 🤔
9% - Oh Sugar!
23% - This story is frustrating and captivating. She keeps switching storylines, each one is interesting but she cuts them near the climax. I know they are all connected but it is annoying. I don't want to stop reading but too many dead end chapters gets on my nerves.
65% - This girl is getting on my nerves. 🙄
I was promised The Firm meets The Silent Patient, it was a legal puzzle like The Firm but not slow enough for The Silent Patient, and I couldn't figure out what it had in common with that book. Anywho the story was good overall. The tempo was perfect, the only issues I had was it was choppy in the beginning but I was never bored. After 65% it was good til the end.
Recommend to others?: Yes. This one is a keeper. I wasn't blown away by anything but it was a good ride.

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annegoodreads's review

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adventurous challenging informative inspiring mysterious tense fast-paced

5.0

The Cage by Bonnie Kistler is part murder mystery, part legal thriller, and part human rights drama. Shay Lambert has worked hard to go to college and law school. She’s smart, married, career-oriented, and overall a perfectly flawed woman. She works long hours wading through boxes of documents to produce in a shareholder lawsuit against the iconic fashion mogul she works for named CDMI. Their corporate symbol is the dove complete with caged live doves in the corporate headquarters. When leaving work late one Sunday, the corporate HR person, Lucy, gets on the elevator with her. The lights go out and Lucy gets shot in the head. Shay says it was suicide. Detective Riley starts getting fed red herrings by corporate counsel Barrett to think it was actually murder. The trap works and Shay is in jail charged with murder and unable to make bail. The characters she meets in jail are also perfectly flawed. I fell in love with Jingjing, a sex trafficking victim. (When this book gets made into a movie Awkwafina needs to be cast as Jingjing.) Shay is determined to prove her innocence. An unlikely ally comes along, opposing counsel, Mark, from the case Shay was working on. Barrett is still determined to silence Shay so the dirty secret of child labor utilized in their clothing manufacturing and so much more won’t fly out of her mouth. He's assigned security man, Lester, to follow her as well as others. Shay is now an expert in corporate law, class action litigation, criminal law, family law, and international human rights as well as revenge. The twists start coming every which way and from every character including her elusive husband David. The ending was perfect- wrapping together the theme of cages destroying freedom, doves meaning freedom, as well as patriarchal corporate America continuing wealth accumulation at the detriment of those doing the work. The ending wasn’t just perfection, it perfectly poised a few characters to continue their fight in subsequent books. Hopefully, a sequel will be flying our way.

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