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The windy city (albeit unnamed) is the setting for David Ellis's second courtroom/ political thriller. In this follow-up to his very successful LINE OF VISION (2001), Ellis takes us through the shadowy hallways of a gubernatorial election, mired in unexpected and iconoclastic revelations about one of the candidates and his closest political ally.
As he did in his first book, Ellis gives his narrator a mesmerizing voice, one the reader is prepared to take at face value. We want to trust him. We want to believe him and to believe in him. He appears to be such a nice, honest and humble guy. Jon Soliday is Senator Grant Tully's Chief Counsel and closest friend. But a few weeks before the election, he is charged with murder. The events that led up to and surround the crime explode around a number of people, who were involved in a rape/murder that happened twenty years in the past. That tragedy becomes the paradigm around which Ellis builds his tale. We learn that some of the most powerful movers and shakers in the state may have reached their lofty perches as a result of a conspiracy to cover up that long forgotten crime --- the one none of them ever talked about, the one that took place early in the summer of 1979. What really happened that night? And how can something that was "taken care of" so precipitously at the time have anything to do with the diabolical killing just taken place?
Soliday is someone who, despite his erudition, his education, his experiences and his connections, is caught up in situations that are beyond his control. And while the reader may empathize or even identify with him, s/he is forced to question many of the self-serving, even possibly naive decisions he makes. Ellis presents his readers with several probing questions: does it matter if choices are made in the name of truth and justice, but are ultimately fixed in a void? Are "truth and justice" abstract concepts to be ignored or twisted to fit a particular situation? What can we say of a man who refuses to question the vagaries of memory, guilt, loyalty and human nature? Big issues. Big dilemmas.
LIFE SENTENCE is an imaginative book that debunks the notion that thrillers are "only" escape genre fiction. Ellis gives us a large novel that is propelled by both plot and character and it surpasses all expectations. Readers will find themselves convinced of one thing, only to learn twenty pages later that they have presumed too much. This tactic, in less capable hands, could be disjointed and clumsy. But here, the author uses this device to create a very clever scenario that moves along in a pithy manner. And he proves the validity of the cliché: "… the best laid plans …" etc. He proposes the argument that human frailties and blind ambition are the elements that propel people on a collision course with disaster. And once the detritus of such calamity is cleared, the landscape is forever changed.
With the skill of a veteran writer, Ellis segues from time frame to time frame with perfect grace. He maintains control over the two stories; infuses his characters with enough humility and chutzpah to make them believable; and touches upon a wide variety of philosophical arguments, ranging from the validity of the death penalty, to notion of male bonding, to the pitfalls of an old boy network, to the demands of lifelong friendships. How far should someone feel compelled or pressured to go in order to prove her/his loyalty to a friend or colleague, he asks.
Fans of political/courtroom thrillers will find LIFE SENTENCE a tale rich in ironies and littered with enough red herrings to challenge the deductive skills of the most Holmesian armchair sleuth. This is a story that is limned like a mobious strip twisting back on itself, with drama and deeply felt convictions about paths taken that lead to destinies unknown until it is sometimes too late.
David Ellis can feel completely at ease moving into his place on the shelf alongside better-known writers. He is bound to give them a run for their money. Enjoy.
--- Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum
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