Scan barcode
A review by amyvl93
Fifty-Fifty by Steve Cavanagh
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
If <i>How to Kill Your Family</i> suffered from uneven pacing, <i>Fifty-Fifty</i> was basically a speed run. Incredibly reminiscient of those episodes of <i>Law & Order</i> where everything goes absolutely bonkers, <i>Fifty-Fifty</i> is a strangely rompy story of the murder of a former Mayor of New York - both his daughters accuse the other of murdering him and a court room drama commences.
Character development is minimal (although this is book five of a series so I recognise that I may well have missed something) - we have skeezy big law solicitors, racist judges & DAs and an opposing defence attorney who is a genius in court despite...having zero experience but just a whole lot of pluck. There's a bit of tragedy that happens here as well, but the impact was fairly muted for me as I didn't really know enough about the character to care beyond a straightforward - that's a shame. We also have one of the accused racking up a body count during the course of the novel with no one apparently seeing any link to the case until towards the end of the book.
A fun page turner, and there was one section in particular that really effectively built tension as we know one of the characters we've been following is going to be killed, but I can't say I'll be in a rush to rejoin Eddie Flynn
Character development is minimal (although this is book five of a series so I recognise that I may well have missed something) - we have skeezy big law solicitors, racist judges & DAs and an opposing defence attorney who is a genius in court despite...having zero experience but just a whole lot of pluck. There's a bit of tragedy that happens here as well, but the impact was fairly muted for me as I didn't really know enough about the character to care beyond a straightforward - that's a shame. We also have one of the accused racking up a body count during the course of the novel with no one apparently seeing any link to the case until towards the end of the book.
A fun page turner, and there was one section in particular that really effectively built tension as we know one of the characters we've been following is going to be killed, but I can't say I'll be in a rush to rejoin Eddie Flynn