Monday, July 2, 2018

The Confession, by Robert Whitlow

Assistant DA Holt Douglas's entire career is built on a lie.  When he was a teenager, he lied about the circumstances of the wreck that killed his best friend.  But to honor his friend's memory, he has poured himself into being the best assistant DA possible.  Robert Whitlow's The Confession starts with this premise, but the confession turns into confessions and Douglas's future as a lawyer is in the balance.

Whitlow once again gives us a terrific legal novel with interesting characters, realistic legal situations and procedures, and a subplot that deals with the main characters' faith journeys.  The scope of the potential scandal dealing with the possible murder of a wealthy town father, and the implications of Holt's decade-long deception, were probably underplayed, but it made for a quiet tension that permeated the story.

Whitlow's legal fiction is kinder and gentler than that of his more secular, mainstream contemporaries.  Not only does he include an element of faith and keeps the language, sex, and violence on a definite PG level, but he has a soft touch with romance.  The Confession is no exception to this.  Holt's romantic life gets a romance novel treatment.  That said, I enjoyed the novel as I have his others.

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