Ahhhhhh…..  another juicy legal thriller – it’s not out of my system  yet I guess.

I read  Eskens’ prior crime novel,  The Life We Bury (2014)  back in January of 2016 and enjoyed it pretty well although it seemed a bit like a young adult novel because of the ages of the protagonists/amateur detectives.    But it was an award-winning novel so when this one came out it intrigued me.  It intrigued me even more when it went on sale at Audible.  lol

*******
The Heavens May Fall
by Allen Eskens
2016 / 270 pages
read by R. C. Bray, David Colacci, Amy McFadden  9h 32m
rating A+
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The hype says this book is different and they’re right – actually.    The police have found the body of a woman who has been murdered.  Under the supervision of Detective Max Rupert the police  investigate.  The woman is tentatively identified and her husband,  Ben Pruett  who is in Chicago at the time,  returns to identify her.  Their daughter is safe and sound,  but needs to be told.   Max is concerned that Pruett is involved because he had a bad experience with him in the past – illegal on the part of Pruett.   The husband comes in for questioning but leaves because Max seems  to be targeting him.   And then it gets different.

Part 2 opens with the Ben Pruett going to see Boady Sanden,  a retired defense attorney and professor and we get his side.   But then we go back to the procedural and the police interviews.   Bodie has problems with the past also – he lost an important case which resulted in a man’s death.

The chapters and sections alternate between the stories of Max Rupert and Pruett/Sanden –  this is actually between the prosecutor and the defense and that thread doesn’t wind up very late in the book.   But there’s also a thread dealing with the unresolved murder of Max Rupert’s wife 4 years prior.   It’s related in rather surprising ways.

The title comes from the legal and Latin saying:   “Fiat justitia ruat caelum” which means “May justice be done though the heavens fall.”   The ideas is that justice must be served regardless of the consequences. –  This is quoted by Sanden and represents a kind of theme in the book.

Apparently both Boady and Rupert were in Eskens’ prior novel,  The Guise of Another but it didn’t look like this was a series so I skipped that one.   But there’s another novel coming out in October of this year so if I’ve missed one of a series – so be it.  I know nothing about the upcoming novel and I may have to go back and pick up the prior.