The Heavens May Fall

July 18, 2016
Edgar-finalist Eskens’s gripping third mystery featuring homicide detective Max Rupert (after 2015’s The Guise of Another) pits Max against defense attorney Boady Sanden, a longtime friend, in a criminal case. Boady is defending attorney Ben Pruitt, who’s on trial for the murder of his wife, Jennavieve. Jennavieve was stabbed to death at night in her Minneapolis home while Ben was at a meeting in Chicago. Was there just enough time for Ben to drive home, kill his wife, and get back by morning? A witness saw a red car park in front of the house at midnight—did Ben have access to a red car? Although Max is distracted by new information on the death of his own wife four years earlier, he pulls together the case against Ben at the insistence of prosecutor Frank Dovey, who’s altogether too eager to put it before a grand jury. Eskens keeps the reader guessing as the tale takes several unexpected twists before reaching the satisfying denouement. Agent: Amy Cloughley, Kimberley Cameron Agency.

A grieving detective and a self-doubting lawyer face off in a courtroom. The last thing Max Rupert wants is to catch a homicide case on the anniversary of his wife Jenni's hit-and-run death. But he's determined to do right by the unidentified dead woman found in an alley with stab wounds in her neck and a child's blanket wrapped around her. Max uses his wits and a pair of registered diamond earrings to trace the victim's identity. She was the wealthy and influential Jennavieve Pruitt, the force behind a foundation to save wetlands. When the police search her home, they find a shadow box missing a two-edged dagger and an inscription that reads, "For carving out more protected land." Although it's likely one of the developers whom Jennavieve prevented from building on his own land, who could have killed her, Max is under pressure to build a case against Ben, Jennavieve's husband, who wasn't even in town the night of the murder. That doesn't discourage an ambitious assistant Hennepin County attorney in league with Jennavieve's sister, who has her own motive for murder and her own reasons for getting Ben charged with the crime instead. But they haven't reckoned with Ben's friend and former law partner, Professor Boady Sanden, who's still recovering from a case that left him so shaken he swore he'd never practice law again. Ben coaxes Boady back into practice to defend him, even though Boady and Max are friends, too. But more than friendship is on the line as Ben's case heads to trial, Max thinks he has a break in his wife's cold case, and the momentum finally starts building in this sideways sequel to The Life We Bury (2014). A previously secondary character, Eskens' broken-hearted hero finally has the spotlight the third time out. It's too bad he has to fight his way through so much back story to get there. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

August 1, 2016
Minneapolis Detective Max Rupert is certain that high-powered lawyer Ben Pruitt murdered his wife, a member of one of the area's most prominent and wealthy families. Rupert's close friend, law professor Boady Sanden, is just as certain that his former colleague Pruitt is innocent, so he agrees to defend him. Rupert has a history with Pruitt, who once made a false accusation against him in court, and matters are further complicated for the detective when he gets some distracting information about the death of his own wife four years earlier. A key element in the murder investigation is whether Pruitt, who was attending a law conference in Chicago on the night his wife died, could have driven back to kill her. An attorney with two successful crime novels under his belt, Eskens here shows that he can write legal thrillers with the best of them, using characters introduced in his debut, The Life We Bury (2014), and building tension and plot twists up to the very end.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)