The Ophelia Cut by John Lescroart

In The Ophelia Cut, Moses McGuire becomes the prime suspect when his daughter's ex-boyfriend, Rick Jessup, is found dead. McGuire's brother-in-law, Dismas Hardy, is hired to defend him. Hardy is worried that McGuire, who's recently started drinking again, will spill his guts about a long kept secret that could destroy the lives of many people. His job is to keep him sober as well as out of jail. As overwhelming evidence stacks up against his client, Hardy has to come up with some clever manoeuvrings to plant the seed of doubt in the minds of the jury.

I loved this book! Even though this is #14 in the series and I hadn't read the others, I didn't feel like I was missing anything. I'm sure there were references that fans of the series understood, but they weren't so obvious that I felt left out. I liked that the author kept eluding to a big event in the past that I knew nothing about. There was lots of mystery surrounding it. I don't know if this was covered in another book, but it didn't bother me to have sketchy details about it.

I loved all of the characters. My favourites were McGuire and, especially Hardy. I loved the way he handled things in and out of court. I'm thrilled that there are many more books featuring him.

I thought I saw a big twist coming at the end. One that would have thrown the motive, the integrity of some of the more innocent characters, and well, everything actually, out the window. However, the author didn't end it that way. That's not to say that the author didn't throw in some juicy twists at the end, because he did and it was a great ending. I was just a little disappointed that it wrapped up so neatly when it could have been extremely messy.

My one small complaint deals with the way the story was told. The story format added tons of suspense and mystery to the story, but with the different story lines and time frames, it was a little confusing as to who knew what when with regards to the crimes. That was a huge deal when it came to motive, opportunity, and such, so I was trying to pay close attention. I'm thinking it was my fault, though, rather than the fault of the author. I was interrupted a number of times while reading and perhaps that left me a bit distracted.

I'm surprised that this author has written 20+ books because his name isn't familiar to me. I'll definitely be looking for more of his work. Because of his huge back list, I won't have to look far.

Highly recommended. I'd definitely read another book by this author.

For more information about this book, please visit Simon & Schuster's website.

I'd like to thank those nice people at Simon & Schuster Canada and Atria Galley Alley for this review copy.

The Ophelia Cut by John Lescroart, Atria (Simon & Schuster) ©2013. ISBN 9781476709154(Hardcover), 418p.