Accused - Mark Gimenez

I found Mark Gimenez books a while ago when I read his The Colour of Law, it had some references to one of my all time favourite books To Kill A Mockingbird. I have since read several of his books and in my ever increasing reading pile was his latest paperback Accused.

I was pleasantly surprised to see he had gone back to the original characters of his first novel The Colour of Law, the one that started it all for me.

A.Scott Fenney is still a practising lawyer in Texas, now for his own small law firm, he looks after his 2 daughters Boo and his newly adopted . He receives a distressing call from his ex wife Rebecca, who left him in the previous novel for a professional golfer - Trey Rawlins, but she is now accused of murdering him and is being held in a police cell in Galveston. Rebecca is now begging Scott to defend her, something he can't say no to as he doesn't want their daughter Boo growing up with her mother in jail and he still has feelings for her. If found guilty Rebecca would be sentenced to life imprisonment. Scott moves his family and associates to Galveston to try and prove Rebecca's innonence and find some flaws in the prosecution's case and some new suspects.

There are plenty of twists and turns in this book and it is fast paced, while it was 576 pages in the paperback version I raced through the book, it is a real page turner and it was also great to welcome back familiar characters.

Although not strictly necessary it is adviable to have read The Colour of Law first to completely understand the references and characters.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it maybe didn't quite hit the dizzying heights of the Colour of Law but was an excellent read that kept me guessing right to the end. I enjoyed seeing how the characters had developed and would love to see more books about them.

Gimenez is often compared to John Grisham but I think he stands by himself as the author of excellent legal thrillers. Keep up the good work. You can purchase it on Amazon for £2.99 the rrp is £6.99.