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LIFE SENTENCE
by Davis Ellis
G. P.Putnam's Sons, February 2003
390 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 0399149791


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Jon Soliday was a powerful man in an eponymous Chicago-like city. He was an expert on arcane election laws and advisor to Senator Grant Tully who was not only the Majority Leader in the State Senate but was running for Governor. Soliday had discovered information that Tullyıs opponent could be disqualified on a technicality and the circle of advisors were having a vigorous discussion about whether or not to use this information.

Meanwhile Solidayıs assistant, Bennett Carey, had shot and killed an intruder in his house, a justified murder said the police. Dale Garrison, longtime family friend and advisor to the Senator, wanted to discuss the Ace, as they have been calling the information about their opponent. When Soliday went to see him, they argued and then, after he left, Garrison called his cell phone asking him to return to his office. When Soliday got there he found Garrison dead and a security guard saw him standing over the body. Soliday was arrested for murder.

There was a blackmail note that seemed to relate to something that had happened twenty years in the past. We find out in bits and pieces what seemed to have happened in the past and learn how it was related to the current murder case. There is a courtroom scene and some high drama as the lawyers pull rabbits out of their hats.

The story is exciting and keeps the reader involved from the very beginning. We know we have not been told everything; in fact, Jon has blacked out on some of the events of that night twenty years before. The story twists and turns and each solution seems plausible until we are surprised in the final pages by what really happened.

Jon, as protagonist and narrator of the story, is an intriguing man. He is, for the most part, a good man, one who wants to do the right thing. And yet as a politician and an advisor to a candidate, he must bend some rules. He is haunted by a decision he made twenty years before, a decision he believes is wrong but one which most of us would make.

Senator Tully is almost too good to be true. He persists in taking unpopular stands (to raise taxes to support education, for example) in spite of the advice of all his counselors. He refuses to fire Jon when he is arrested and even testifies at his trial, knowing that will probably lose him the election. The other characters are straw figures with the exception of Bennett Carey, who appears to be a gray eminence, a lawyer who has no personal life and is very good in everything he does.

There are some interesting moral and ethical questions raised by this story. The reader must answer for herself as the characters make their decisions. But we can ponder for a bit: does the end ever justify the means? When,if at all, is it permissible to lie? What would we be willing to do to attain a position of power? And can people get elected if they refuse to do these things?

I enjoyed the book and found the questions very pertinent for todayıs world. Ellisıs first novel won the Edgar for best first and this one seems to be equally as good.

Reviewed by Sally A. Fellows, April 2003

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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