This is an engaging way to begin the book because it tells you a lot about Jack as well as the trouble he’s likely in. Their flimsy excuse for taking him to the station for the interview, and the pretense of needing to put the interview on tape because they’re talking to so many people, are bright flashing neon letters saying, “You’re in the deep water now, Jack!” He’s talking to the police without a lawyer. You’ll know immediately that Jack has already made a big mistake. Just to make clear, are you here at the First Precinct voluntarily?” Then, “And you’re willing to speak to me of your own accord?”

He apparently was in the vicinity of a shooting that morning, and an NYPD detective is looking for information.īoyle: Okay, I’ve turned on the machine, Mr. The book opens with the transcript of a police station interview with Harris. The outraged families of the victims, led by Jack, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Neeley, a suit that has been recently dismissed by the court. Worse, he had actively encouraged the boy’s interest in weapons and spent many hours at the shooting range with him. The boy was the son of prominent investment banker Malcolm Neeley, who’d refused to get the boy treatment. Before killing himself, he murdered 13 people and injured many more. Three years before the novel begins, a mentally disturbed 15-year-old staged a shooting in Penn Station during peak commuting hours. All this trauma landed him in a psychiatric hospital for a time.Įventually, Jack found success as a best-selling novelist and on the family front with his wife Molly and teenage daughter Buckley. Then he lost his only brother in a tragic auto accident the night Jack and Olivia split. As Olivia narrates the story, we learn that nice-guy Jack had to negotiate some difficult emotional territory before their breakup, with his mother dying during his teen years and his father when they were in college. Written by Alafair Burke - Even two decades later, New York criminal defense lawyer Olivia Randall has never quite forgiven herself for the unnecessarily cruel way she broke up with her fiancé, Jack Harris.

The ex alafair burke summary