Bleedout

"Watch your back most
carefully when someone you
trust steps behind you."
Even after Hugh Freyl lost his sight he was invincible. But late one night, in the library of the elite law firm that bears his name, he was beaten to death. The obvious suspect is David Marion, a convicted killer from the inner city. Hugh, the scion of the richest and most influential family in Springfield, Illinois, had orchestrated David's release from prison and outraged his family and friends by making the young man his protégé. Now, in the eyes of Hugh's circle, David's criminal past fits him perfectly for the murderer's role. It makes no sense for David to have killed his teacher, liberator and friend. Yet, if he did not, who did?
With no one to stand up for him, and armed only with the criminal skills he honed in prison and the savage fury of a cornered man, David must fight alone. But is he battling to prove his innocence or to hide his guilt?
In Springfield nothing is what it seems, and the more David struggles to clear himself, the closer he gets to the snake pit of ambition and greed poisoning the social and political fabric of the city. Was Hugh all he appeared to be? Who was he protecting and why? Could this most upright of men have involved his firm in shady financial dealings? To find the answers, David must confront his violent past and the uncertainty of his future.
Unraveling with startling reversals and visceral detail and as mesmerizing as the work of Scott Turow, Bleedout is a tense, psychological tour de force. It is charged with insights into betrayal and jealousy so stark that they call into question the values and presumptions by which we judge others guilty and ourselves innocent.

Whitbread Award–winning novelist Brady (Theory of War) has crafted an action-packed, densely woven thriller set in Springfield, Ill., about a blind attorney and the young man who may or may not have murdered him. David Marion, 33, who spent his teens and 20s in prison for the murder of his foster brother and foster father, is now the prime suspect in the brutal murder of Hugh Freyl, the lawyer who reformed Marion in prison. As a trusting relationship blossomed between the two men, Hugh realized how smart, decent—and innocent—David really was; the story of their friendship is told in flashbacks. At the start of the present-day narrative, "gate-crasher" David ducks into Freyl's funeral tent to pay his respects, much to the horror of the other guests, mostly condescending high society types like Hugh's mother, Becky. But as Hugh and his personal assistant Stephanie Willis had discovered before Hugh's death, David was probably never a killer. More digging reveals prison torture, child abuse and serious flaws in the original case against David. Meanwhile, positive evidence proves David had nothing to do with Hugh's death, and he shifts into fierce detective mode with Stephanie's help and some cash incentive from shifty Becky, discovering "overcultivated orchards of corporate fraud" within Hugh's slick law firm. After Stephanie and David sift through several backstabbing crooks, the real killer is flushed out at the conclusion of this satisfying if somewhat long-winded novel. Agent, George Lucas. $100,000 ad/promo. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.