SILENT COUNSEL

If readers can buy into the unlikely premise of Isaacson’s debut novel, an intricately laid-out crime thriller, they'll enjoy its twists and turns.

Scott Heller has it all. He's an attractive, intelligent attorney who has chosen a career path that guarantees his wife, Jody, and nine-year-old daughter, Alex, spend their days luxuriating in their private swimming pool. Scott commutes to his New York office in his Porsche and works at filing slam-dunk class-action suits. But things change when he accepts a nasty case as a favor for a friend. Even Jody is horrified to find Scott is acting as an intermediary for the person who hit six-year-old Benjamin Altman in front of Ben's own home while the boy's father was distracted by the telephone. The killer, who spun away and left the child dead in the road, decides to turn himself in—but he wants a deal from the District Attorney before he'll cop to the crime, and he hires Scott to approach the D.A. The catch? If the D.A. doesn't bite, Scott must keep the killer's identity a secret. Not surprisingly, the D.A. doesn't agree to a plea arrangement. That leaves Scott with a big problem: He knows who killed little Ben and doesn't believe he can tell anyone, even Jody, because the killer's name was given to him as part of the attorney-client privilege. That sets Ben's grieving mother off on a path to find the man responsible for her son's death. She won't stop until she discovers the client's identity—even if it means kidnapping someone very close to him in the process.

Despite plot holes, some clunky dialog and way too much lawyer-speak, the book boasts a complex story and heart-pounding climax that will have readers looking forward to Isaacson’s next.