Breach of Trust
Imagine tense confrontations over the board of education’s contract for school buses. Or white-knuckle clashes about veterans-first hiring laws. Ellis, the prosecutor who convicted former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, routinely turns these real-life dramas into compelling fiction. In his sixth novel, the Edgar winner gives us young criminal lawyer Jason Kolarich, about to settle into a career defending awful people with money. Then something horrible happens to his family. Trying to learn more, he takes a job on the governor’s staff. Now he’s surrounded by reptiles who rattle on about downstate poll numbers so they can keep the posts that let them steal the state blind. Then come the feds, who are not exactly driven by a longing for justice. There’s sex, suspense, and blood here, but it’s Ellis’ insider knowledge of this corrupt-wheels-within-corrupt-wheels world that sparks his narrative. He knows that power often goes to the wrong people because they’re the ones who want it, and he turns that knowledge into penetrating legal fiction reminiscent of George V. Higgins. --Jeff Ayers