Book Review: The Jury Master by Robert Dugoni

By Sandy Amazeen Feb 26, 2006, 2:59 GMT

In the tradition of Scott Turow and Brad Meltzer, this debut novel introducesa bold and entertaining new voice to the legal thriller genre. ...more

Sometimes what you don’t know can hurt you, especially when the past slams into you like a freight train as attorney David Sloane found out. After winning a wrongful death case in a surprising upset for a particularly unpleasant client Sloane takes a well deserved vacation. Unfortunately he can’t take a vacation from his nightmares, attempts on his life or the murder of an aging tenant in his apartment building and that’s just for starters.

The apparent suicide of Joe Branick wouldn’t have raised near as many flags for police detective Tom Molia were it not for the fact that the new deputy responding to a late night call has turned up missing. Well, that and the fact he’s got the Assistant United States Attorney and the Department of Justice telling him to keep his hands off the case. Something big is brewing and Branick is at the center of it.

Former CIA agent Charles Jenkins enjoys the quiet life on his backwoods farm. Painting, growing tomatoes, keeping some Arabian horses and his two big ridgeback dogs are his passion until a young woman with a file barges in on his retreat. Suddenly he finds himself under a full scale attack and running for his life. Somehow all these people are tied up with Joe Branick and some terrible past deeds that are about to catch up with them all if they live that long.

Dugoni has turned out a cliff-hanging, nonstop thriller that crisscrosses the country and involves the highest levels of government in cover-up and scandal that will keep reader guessing. The wide cast of characters are nicely developed and believable, the plot points sound and strong and the pacing fast and furious in this debut novel. It will be interesting to see how Dugoni’s writing develops as this surely can’t be his only contribution to the genre.