Review: Fatal Convictions by Randy Singer

Genre: Legal Thriller
Publisher: Tyndale House 
Released: Aug. 1, 2010
397 pages

About the Book:

Alexander Madison is part lawyer, part pastor, and part con artist. When a Muslim imam is accused of instigating honor killings, Alex must decide whether to take the case that every other lawyer in town is running away from. He doesn’t realize until it’s too late that defending the imam may cost him the one thing in life he cares about most. Fatal Convictions is the story of a lawyer willing to risk it all and the women who must choose between faith and love.

  

My Rating & Thoughts:    ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Alex works as a part-time pastor and part-time lawyer. His firm gets hired to defend a muslin leader who was been charged with instigating honor killings. The man says he is not guilty, but the prosecution has some very compelling evidence against him. Alex struggles wanting to be one to fight this case and wants to drop it, but his business partner is determined that they should take on the case. Over time Alex’s opinion changes but he receives backlash from his church board due to the publicity of the case. There were some very gruesome and intense scenes included in this story that I wasn’t expecting, and I was worried that it would cause me to lose sleep, but I was okay. I became so invested in the story that I didn’t want to put the book down, but I forced myself to take breaks due to the dark subject matter. I learned quite a bit about the muslin faith that I didn’t know. I enjoyed the courtroom scenes and following Alex and Shannon while they tried to defend the case even though they weren’t sure on the guilt of their client. I liked the mix of the courtroom scenes, the research aspects, and the personal activities of the characters. The conflict with the church board felt realistic and I liked how the faith element was added in with Alex looking to God to help him decide how to proceed. I also enjoyed the scenes between Alex and his grandmother, she helped guide him without telling him what to do. While this was a pretty dark subject matter I liked most of the storyline. I did struggle with the scenes between Alex and Nora as their relationship just felt wrong for a pastor as they come from 2 different beliefs. There were quite a few twists and turns over the course of the story and while there are some scenes told from the villain’s perspective I was shocked by the final reveal. I especially loved that an epilogue was included to give us an update on how life was going for Alex a year later, I was pleased with how his story wrapped up.

“Christ’s entire message was based on God’s willingness to forgive our sins, not just one time, but for all time.”

(I purchased my copy of this book; opinions expressed 

in this review are my honest opinion and completely my own.)

Check out my reviews of other books by this author: 

   

The Judge