Defending Jacob

A month ago, or so, the person in my book club who is going to host the September meeting told us that she had chosen this book, Defending Jacob by William Landay, and because it is recently published, she gave us the title well in advance so we could get on the waiting list at the library for it.

Well, I went from being 26th on the list to getting a email saying that it was ready for me to pick up, so I did. I usually worry that when I read a book too far in advance of the meeting that I will not remember too much about it, especially not the details.

I think I might remember this one, though. It has stayed with me for this past week since I finished it. The father in this crime thriller is a DA who must defend his 15-year-old son, Jacob, who is accused of a brutal murder of another 14-year-old boy. (Okay, they hire another attorney to actually represent Jacob, but the father is part of the courtroom drama.) Although I found problems with the character of the father that bothered me, I could not put this 400-page-book down and had to find out what happened.

The primary focus of the book is about the idea that there might be a "murder gene" - a predisposition to violence through genetics. I don't know what biologists/psychiatrists have to say about that, and I could nitpick about some of the other things in the book, but it boiled down to a fun (well, maybe not fun, exactly, but a light and easy) summer read for me.