Review: Simple Intent by Linda Sands

Title: Simple Intent

Published: Open Books August 2010

Sypnosis: When two legal interns uncover the case of a drug dealer wrongly convicted of murder, their simple intent is to free an innocent man and bring the guilty to justice, however their effort is complicated by a crooked cop, a mobster, his ambitious attorney and a secret alliance.

Status: Read from December 13 to 14, 2010 — I own a copy

My Thoughts:

Simple Intent is an engaging legal thriller. Two legal interns stumble upon a tangled web of corruption, ambition and injustice as they investigate the case of a prisoner who claims he was wrongly convicted.
Reilly, a charming if rakish, law student intercepts the case of Ray Bentley and discovers links to a corrupt retiring cop. Reilly involves fellow intern, Sailor, and together they follow the threads that lead to the mob, the drug trade and their law firm partners. The interns’ investigation inadvertently hastens the disintegration of the uneasy alliance between the criminal associates and Reilly and Sailor are caught in the fallout.
Sailor and Reilly are interesting protagonists, opposites in background and attitude, they work well as a partnership. At first I had difficultly keeping the rather large cast and their entangled relationships straight. Partly that is because most of the characters motivations are ambiguous and they each have their own hidden agenda. Though I think the storyline would have been tighter if Sands had narrowed the focus to to a few key characters, I do feel she developed each well.
The threads between the characters, and the part they in the storyline are well handled though some don’t draw together until near the end. There were moments when I thought perhaps I had missed something and paged back a little but in the main, the storyline was cohesive. There is no real mystery to uncover as the third person point of view means we are aware of the ties that Reilly and Sailor aren’t. Sands does manage to maintain suspense by clouding the motivations of some of the key characters but the conclusion is reasonably predicitable.
Simple Intent is well written with cogent imagery and detail. Sands writing style appealed to me, I felt the use of language was both sophisticated and accessible.
I’d recommend Simple Intent by Linda Sands as an impressive debut in the genre.

@ Goodreads