Book Review Club: While Justice Sleeps by Stacey Abrams #thriller #review

Since the Supreme Court is much in the news these days, I thought this thriller an appropriate pick for this month’s edition of the Barrie Summy Book Review Club.

While Justice Sleeps

While Justice Sleeps
by Stacey Abrams*
Doubleday, 2021

“a gripping thriller set within the halls of the U.S. Supreme Court—where a young law clerk finds herself embroiled in a shocking mystery plotted by one of the most preeminent judges in America.”

Avery Keene is a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Howard Wynn. She’s young and struggling to deal with her job, her student debt and her drug-addled mother. As if she doesn’t have enough on her plate, she’s thrown a curve ball when her boss, who is ill with an incurable degenerative disease, suddenly goes into a coma. To Avery’s surprise, he has left her his Power of Attorney as well as cryptic clues to a pending case about a merger between an American biotech company and an Indian genetics firm, a merger opposed by the president.

Everyone is hiding something. The biotech company has engaged in some unethical practices, the president and his chief henchman have checkered pasts, and the justice has his secrets as well. It takes Avery, the justice’s son, and a few other accomplices to sort things out.

The plot is too convoluted to try to explain here, but the book was very exciting, with lots of twists and turns. I had a hard time putting it down. Excellent legal thriller with a strong female protagonist.

* Yes, that is the Stacey Abrams who is currently running for governor of the State of Georgia! She’s a brilliant, multi-talented woman. She also writes multi-cultural romance under the name Selina Montgomery.

I hope you are enjoying spring weather, wherever you are. Happy Reading!

Linda

As always, click on the link below for more great reviews in Barrie Summy’s Book Review Club!

Click icon for more
book review blogs
@Barrie Summy

Book Review Club: The Alice Network by @KateQuinnAuthor #HistoricalFiction #thriller

Alice Network cover

The Alice Network
by Kate Quinn
Audiobook narrated by Saskia Maarleveld, 2017

This is a twin stranded storyline book. It begins in 1947 with a young American girl, Charlie Sinclair, traveling to France with her mother. They stop overnight in Southampton, England, where Charlie ditches her mother and heads for London to find the elusive Evelyn Gardner. Charlie is half French, and her cousin Rose disappeared during the war. Evelyn Gardner holds the only key to what might have happened to Rose, and Charlie is determined to find her. When she does, Eve threatens to kill her. Eve is an acerbic alcoholic with a stammer and deformed hands, having had every knuckle broken.

The other storyline follows Evelyn as she becomes a spy for England during World War I. Eve is half French also and speaks fluent French as well as German. After training, she is sent to France to join the Alice Network, a highly effective group of spies led by the remarkable Alice, who prefers to be called Lily. Eve lands a job working at a restaurant that caters to the German officer class called Le Lethe in Lille owned by a collaborator named Rene. He has no idea that the shy, stuttering girl speaks fluent German.

Later, during WWII, Rose worked for a man named Rene in a restaurant of the same name in Limoges. Could it be the same man?

Charlie, Eve and Eve’s Scottish man-of-all-work, Finn Kilgore, head for France to look for Rose and Rene. The three misfits form an alliance of need, but end up forging strong ties.

The story of Eve’s work with the Alice Network during the Great War is quite riveting. Saskia Maarleveld does a great job with all the different accents. I really did enjoy this book and recommend it highly. It’s exciting, with strong female protagonists, a sexy Scotsman, and a fascinating story.

Linda

As always, click on the link below for more great reviews in Barrie Summy’s Book Review Club!

Click icon for more
book review blogs
@Barrie Summy