Thirteen: The serial killer isn't on trial. He's on the jury (Eddie Flynn Series)

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It was a perfect book for a buddy read and we had a great time trying to find all the pieces to solve the big puzzle. We were able to find some hints to what was coming, but we were also surprised! The creative plot and fascinating characters kept me engaged and there was just the right amount of action to add some tension. The narrative is split between Eddie and Kane’s POV’s, each compelling in its own way. Eddie is a fascinating and flawed protagonist who is easy to root for. And Kane, without giving too much away,….well, he is one of the most fascinating characters I have come across in a long time! Sexual selection isn't considered at all. Variant Thirteens are apparently catnip to all women, who cannot resist their programming: Genetically modified humans is nothing new to SCI-FI but I haven't ran across any where the building material came from the savage hunter/killers that had long since been bred out of the human race. Carl Maralis is the product of such genetic engineering called Variant Thirteen. I'm not sure that I bought the 'gender and genetics' theme. The eponymous Variant Thirteens are human men, genetically modified to be as violent and selfish as our pre-civilisation ancestors, and are consequently feared by all and tightly regulated: living on reservations or registered. The hero, Carl, is a Variant Thirteen who has bought himself a little more freedom by taking a job hunting down other variants.

But I was able to look past that and the storyline wasn't so bad. It wasn't as good as I thought it'd be but lets just say it wasn't as bad as I Am Number Four's sequel which, FYI, was horrible. Nature versus nurture is the glaring subtext of this story. To this end, prejudice and bigotry play a big part in the dark future of "Thirteen". On one hand, there's the overt bigotry of "jesusland", secessionist southern states and their teaparty agenda writ large. In this context, Carl experiences bigotry because of the color of his skin. He experiences bigotry because of the years he spent on the Mars colony. He experiences legislated bigotry at the hands of various nation-states and corporate entities throughout Europe and both north and south america because of his geneprint. I was enthralled, start to finish. My anxiety was through the roof. The character development was great, the pacing was spot on, the writing was sharp and clever and the plot twists?! 👏🏾 Clay begins the next tape as he sees Tony walking out of Rosie’s and getting in his car but not driving away. On this tape, Hannah reveals that the poem everyone at school was sharing around and analyzing in English class was actually hers— Ryan Shaver, the editor of the Lost-N-Found Gazette, stole it from her and made copies. Clay leaves Rosie’s. Tony calls him over and tells him to get into his car, revealing that he has the second set of tapes.

Thirteen

Carl lifted fingertips to his face, brushed at his cheekbones. “You see this? When you’re a variant, people don’t look at this. They go right through the skin, and all they see is what’s written into your double helix.” Eddie Flynn, a former con artist turned lawyer, is put in the spotlight when he takes on the case of a Hollywood actor accused of murdering his wife and bodyguard. The evidence is damning, but Eddie believes in his client's innocence and will do what it takes to win the case. I really don't want to say too much more about the plot, just that it's twisty and turny, and certainly has the wow-factor that a good legal thriller needs. Yet it's so much more than that. I really enjoyed the characters, as well as the action in and out of the courtroom and I'll certainly be on the lookout for more of Steve Cavanagh's work in the future. I can't recommend this book highly enough. So is Tracy being corrupted by the way the media and business relentlessly sexualise and commodify youth? Or was she just doomed to go off the rails like her mom? Was all this genetically programmed into her from day one - a grisly blue-collar tragedy bred in the bone?

I’m not going to lie, I pre-judged this. I made an ass out of myself to myself, because I assumed... certain things. Out of honesty, I’ll admit I was expecting this to be somewhat juvenile. Eddie and the killer were both compelling characters. Both intelligent and calculating, setting up chess moves to counter each other, one after another, in a battle of wits. Even the other characters from Art Pryor to Harper are well crafted and memorable. Some of the killer’s actions seemed inexplicable. The jury never really came into play in the story which was disappointing for someone who enjoys jury battles. Having said that, it does not take away the fact that this is a well-crafted story. Joshua Kane has been preparing for this moment his whole life. He’s done it before. But this is the big one. Disappointingly, all that was squandered away for pedestrian bang, bang, bang. There was extreme armed violence, and there was graphic sex. Granted, this was true to noir-form, a hallmark of Morgan, but it was often counter-intuitive for this story predicated upon the world being a better place because of softer, more feminized approaches like tolerance and negotiations. But gosh dang all that talking and whatnot, there was nothing like exertions of masculine prowess and windpipe crushing to resolve matter expediently. The disconnect was too flawed to ignore. Mr. Morgan is one of my top three favorite current authors and I can't rightfully say why I just now finally got around to reading Thirteen but it's more than worth the wait.Thirteen follows conman-turned-attorney Eddie Flynn as he argues a case in defense of Hollywood “It Boy” Robert Soloman, who has been accused of murdering his wife and her alleged lover. The unique, twisty aspect of this thriller though is that - as the blurb and cover art scream - the real killer isn’t on trial… he’s on the jury! Neat-O! This is one clever book. The author reminds me a lot of John Grisham, his earlier books. I love courtroom drama legal thrillers and I was tithe on the edge of my seat reading this one. I was hooked right from the beginning to the very end. Oh yeah, Jesusland is another part of the story that didn't quite ring true for me. It was a neat idea. The story is set in a future where the USA has fallen apart into the Rim States, the Union, and the Confederate Republic, known as Jesusland. Jesusland is poorer and more restrictive than the Rim States – and it would've been interesting if that had been used as a chance to explore the costs and benefits of rejecting ruthless capitalism. But instead, Jesusland is poor because it's bigoted, racist, and Christian, and everyone who lives there is apparently a moron. One POV character is persuaded that an assassin is actually the Second Coming of Christ because he looks like a picture of Jesus in a comic book. Bailed out from jail on a quid pro quo, the UN teamed with Marsalis to investigate a random murder spree. Apparently doomed by both nature and nurture to have no sense of humor or charisma, Marsalis was not a character to warm up to but no matter, he promised adrenaline surges in his intuitive pursuit of the murderer, another Thirteen. A point of disbelief for me was his rampant “Thirteen paranoia” employed to connect the dots or extract information, coincident after coincident, where previously the whole of UN and their artificial intelligence were unable to. Hollywood star Robert Solomon is charged with the brutal murder of his beautiful wife. This is the celebrity murder trial of the century (lot similar to the O J Simpson case) and ex-con turned lawyer Eddie Flynn is the only man who stands between Bobby and conviction. All the evidence points to Robert's guilt, but as the trial begins a series of sinister incidents in the courtroom starts to raise doubts in Eddie's mind. Is the killer closer than he imagined?

Thirteen started off very promising, with tight writing and genuinely tense moments, but was ultimately short on delivery. In it, I very much wanted affirmation of Morgan’s story-writing potential having read his popular Altered Carbon, which I enjoyed but still left wanting. Thirteen was set in a precursor world 100 years before Altered Carbon, so expect the technology to be less thrilling. Unfortunately, the technology in Thirteencontributed to conveniences but was not quite integral to story development. There seems to be an assumption that the elimination of violence was achieved by crowds of conformist, civilised people hunting down the variant monsters with torches and pitchforks as if they were Frankensteins – and that's the only evolution that's ever taken place: Richard K. Morgan has again established himself as one of my very mostest all time favorite authors. As a reader, I've often gone through endless numbers of book descriptions online, or browsed the shelves at bookstores, and felt like nobody is writing a book just for me. Sure, there's more 'good' or even 'great' books out there that I'd enjoy than I'll ever have time to read. But even when I'm reading a great book that I can really get into, I still have a nagging reservation, a slight cognitive disconnect between myself and the characters in the book: "What kind of idiot are they? Why didn't they do it the other way? This guy is a hopeless fool. They're are much easier ways to accomplish that goal."Guess what? I read a book that is number four in a series without reading the previous installments first. On purpose. And I survived.