Book Review: A Killer’s Alibi by William L. Myers Jr.

*I received a complimentary copy of this book, and I’m leaving a voluntary review*
This is a dark, gritty, legal/crime thriller. There’s murders, secrets, lies, cold cases—basically everything you’d want in a fantastic book. Let me tell you about it.

The plot is simple: A mafia boss is caught red-handed by the police, having murdered his rival and his daughter’s lover. The bloody knife is still in his hand. There’s no denying it, he’s going to jail. His lawyer, sees the case as quite simple—or it would have been, if our mafia boss would just talk to him. But there’s something he’s hiding, something he’s not revealing. And how can his lawyer defend him without all the details? The daughter is in shock, hospitalized, the victim is dead, and the main suspect isn’t talking.

At the same time, the lawyer’s wife is working on freeing a seemingly innocent woman, a victim of childhood abuse who’s been wrongly incarcerated. But is the case as simple as she thinks? Does everyone involved remember it correctly? And if they’re not, who’s lying? And what are they hiding? There’s also trouble brewing her private life, is someone stalking her and if so, who?

I won’t beat around the bush, this book is amazing. Gripping, fast-paced, and so incredibly intelligent. Myers has called it a ‘legal thriller’ and I didn’t even realize that this was a genre but I absolutely love it.It’s beautifully written, very well researched, and I wasn’t bored for a second. I read more than half of this in one evening, and it’s been a while since I’ve been this excited about a book. It’s the legal and law parts of it that does it for me; it makes it so exciting, so intelligent, so real. I love a good court thriller movie, and this is like a reading one.

To make a similar example, to me this read like a season of True Detective. It has that familiar slow burn of revealing secrets and plot devices with a steady trickle, but at the same time keeping you tense an interested. I thought I had it figured out so many times, but I was never right.

There’s nothing to complain about in this book, not one single thing. I was very happily surprised by the quality of both the writing and the story. And that should probably not come as such a shock, had I researched Myers a bit more before this. This is his third book in the series, and both of the two other ones have thousands of ratings on Goodreads. And they’re doing really well. Now I understand why, and I’m looking forward to reading more of Myers’ work. These books are going to be huge.

Oh, by the way, this book was just released today. Jump on it quickly.

Very highly recommended for anyone who wants a clever crime thriller, along the lines of True Detective or Law and Order. Go check it out here.