Plot Summary
Andy Barber has served as a district attorney for over two decades. Respected by the community, and unrelenting in the courtroom, he seems to be a happy family man too. This could all change when a shocking murder tears apart their small New England community. The fact that blindsides them all: Andy's fourteen year old boy Jacob is the alleged killer of a fellow student.
With every natural inclination to guard his son, and with Jacob's insistence of innocence, Andy wants to believe with every fiber of his fatherly being that it is true. But there are facts which surface that may not be able to shield the truth from Andy, or how little he understands of his son. The trial Andy faces become much bigger than the courtroom as Andy's own past, and his child's future seem inseparable and inconceivable.
Where does loyalty and justice draw the line? This novel of a family in crisis blended with the suspense of a true crime thriller will move audiences to the core as they follow the betrayals and the bewilderment which cause lives to spin out of control.
William Landay was born in 1963 in Boston Massachusetts. He is a novelist. Attending Yale University and Boston College Law, he first served for eight years as an attorney, before becoming a writer. The genres he writes for are crime, mystery, and thriller. Defending Jacob was awarded the Goodreads Choice for Best Mystery and Thriller and for Best Author.
"I thought this was an excellent read. When the son of a district attorney is accused of murder, the family fragments. A bizarre turn of events ensures that Jacob is cleared, but just when you thought things were going to be okay, there's something waiting in the wings to surprise you. Full of twists and turns and a good look into the role of heredity to predict our behavior."
—
Elaine (5 out of 5 stars)
Publisher Summary
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A legal thriller that’s comparable to classics such as Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent . . . tragic and shocking.”—Associated Press
NOW AN EMMY-NOMINATED ORIGINAL STREAMING SERIES • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Entertainment Weekly • Boston Globe • Kansas City Star
Andy Barber has been an assistant district attorney in his suburban Massachusetts county for more than twenty years. He is respected in his community, tenacious in the courtroom, and happy at home with his wife, Laurie, and son, Jacob. But when a shocking crime shatters their New England town, Andy is blindsided by what happens next: his fourteen-year-old son is charged with the murder of a fellow student.
Every parental instinct Andy has rallies to protect his boy. Jacob insists that he is innocent, and Andy believes him. Andy must. He’s his father. But as damning facts and shocking revelations surface, as a marriage threatens to crumble and the trial intensifies, and as the crisis reveals how little a father knows about his son, Andy will face a trial of his own—between loyalty and justice, between truth and allegation, between a past he’s tried to bury and a future he cannot conceive.
Award-winning author William Landay has written the consummate novel of an embattled family in crisis—a suspenseful, character-driven mystery that is also a spellbinding tale of guilt, betrayal, and the terrifying speed at which our lives can spin out of control.
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About William Landay
William Landay is the author of The Strangler, a Los Angeles Times Favorite Crime Book of the Year, and Mission Flats, winner of the Creasey Memorial Dagger Award for Best First Crime Novel and a Barry Award nominee. A former district attorney who holds degrees from Yale and Boston College of Law, he lives in Boston.
About Grover Gardner
Grover Gardner (a.k.a. Tom Parker) is an award-winning narrator with over a thousand titles to his credit. Named one of the “Best Voices of the Century” and a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine, he has won three prestigious Audie Awards, was chosen Narrator of the Year for 2005 by Publishers Weekly, and has earned more than thirty Earphones Awards.