Not a Duffy in sight...

This is my fourth "new John Grisham" of 2009, following on from Mark Gimenez, Scott Pratt and Joseph Teller.

David Kessler dropped out of school at the age of 15 and was self-educated from then on. He struggled for 25 years to become a published author before finally making his breakthrough with A Fool for a Client, a legal thriller set in New York. This was followed up by The Other Victim, Tarnished Heroes and Reckless Justice. He also courted controversy by co-writing "Who Really Killed Rachel" (about the Wimbledon Common murder of Rachel Nickell) with Colin Stagg, the man who was falsely accused of the crime, and twice arrested for it. The book is now out of print, but since then, the real murderer - who was named in the book - has been convicted of the crime.

"Mercy" is his latest legal thriller.

As he makes an 11th hour plea for mercy, lawyer Alex Sedaka is resigned to the fact that his client Clayton Burrows will be executed. Charged with the rape and murder of 18-year-old classmate Dorothy Olsen - a girl he mercilessly bullied and victimised at school - the case seems cut and dry. But then the victim's mother makes an astonishing offer - clemency in return for the whereabouts of her daughter's body before she herself dies of the terminal disease ravaging her body. Alex must now convince Clayton to come clean - but he still protests his innocence. 

Is this another one of Clayton's games to or is he an innocent man about to be condemned to death? Sedaka and his small team have fifteen hours to dig up everything that they can to try and save their client. The clock is ticking...

This is a great legal thriller. There are lots of ways to play out your story. This one happens in just fifteen hours, giving it a natural, relentless pace that has you speeding through the chapters (which are headed with just the time of day when the action is taking place). I'll let some of the slightly more outlandish computer hacking bits slide (you might have to suspend disbelief for those bits...)

Once again, the obvious, lazy journalistic comparison is with John Grisham, the king of the legal thriller, and this book holds up well in such exalted company. The fast pace really works well and the story moves along nicely without feeling too forced, with little snippets being released all the time as it builds towards an inevitable (but always in doubt about which way it might go) climax.

Recommended for fans of Grisham, Mark Gimenez, Scott Pratt, Joseph Teller and Michael Connelly's "Lincoln Lawyer".