Hit the spot!! Yay!!!

An Invisible Client
By Victor Methos
2019 / 256 pages
Read by Alexander Cendese 6h 19m
Rating A / legal crime

Joel Whiting, the 12-year old only child of the widowed Rebecca Whiting, is very ill from cyanide poisoning the result of over-the-counter cough medicine. There have been other cases and a cursory criminal investigation. Rebecca is convinced the pharmaceutical company is responsible, but they’re pushing the idea of a random killer being the culprit.  So she contacts our first person narrator, Noah Byron, a divorced but still young and very ambitious lawyer, one of three partners in a Salt Lake City firm.  His first exploratory interview with the Pharma-K company raises his suspicions.  He takes Rebecca’s case.

Noah then hires and commandeers the brilliant 3rd-year law student Olivia Sinclair to assist him.  It’s when he starts interviewing young Joel, he starts getting emotionally involved with the case.  Without a certain medical treatment which is not going to be made available because he is too far gone, Joel will die.

 It looks like Noah is in for a very ugly and expensive case.  Settlement offers are made but more stuff happens and more evidence is uncovered

 The book is politically correct in all the important ways and that’s been a bit of a complaint in some customer-type reviews but doesn’t bother me except when it goes on a bit too long.   Methos goes after the big-money pharmaceutical industry business in many ways.

There are surprisingly very touching parts and in a couple places that even gets a wee bit mushy but it all works together nicely. This isn’t really a thriller in the murder and car-chase sense of the genre,  but the tension is masterfully built without that. Kudos!  

The plot follows several different threads,  the investigation and court case, the health of young Joel and a maybe-budding relationship for Noah. And then there’s the tension within the firm due to the expense of litigation.  I can’t “love” this book,  but it was just exactly what the doctor ordered for someone who right now is basically only able to follow the plot line of the best books while maintaining reasonable expectations of character development and writing style.

Ok, so it’s basically an average legal mystery which includes some nice courtroom drama and well drawn characters.  As such, it’s not the best on that shelf, However! It’s just what the doctor ordered for my current condition of not being able to focus well enough for complex reading material.  I’ve read three of Methos’ books  and they were all “very good” except for Neon Lawyer which was outstanding – I read that one first.   I’m going to have to stash a couple of these on my Wish List for the next time I need something to boost my mood from time to time.