Matt McAvoy Book Review

Really good book, this one, by an author who definitely knows the craft – though, if I’m being honest, it took me a fair while longer to read than I thought it would.  You can generally get away with a lengthy word count in the detective investigation genre, though I would say that Justice: A Hollywood Homicide is very heavily weighted in favour of character dialogue and interaction.  I don’t think it would be giving anything away to say that this case is pretty cut-and-dry from the start, though there are one or two surprises which make it stand out.  If I’m going to be critically honest, I will say that I thought it was too long, though that was really its only fault, and all said you do find yourself getting engaged with some pretty interesting characters.  It is decent drama; I wouldn’t call it a thriller or a whodunnit; there’s no real action to speak of, although it reminded me more of the midweek detective shows than Agatha Christie.

Thankfully, J. Grant Boyd steers away from the superficial industry gloss that murder books set in Hollywood have a tendency to rely on; this is rather more gritty and procedural, and in truth could have really been set anywhere in America, the only real nod to Lalaland being that the victim and suspect are world-famous, or so it initially seems.  He writes well, and you do find yourself truly invested in the characters, most of whom you genuinely relate to and empathize with.  They have interesting little narratives, and there really isn’t any ambiguity about who the good guys and bad guys are.  But still, as the tale unfolds it is pretty arresting, if you’ll excuse the pun.  I’ve already said that Justice is very talky, and that gives it an almost soapy feel; despite the taxing length of the book, I actually found myself wondering what comes next for some of the characters: Horne, B.J. and even Alyce.  Unusually for me, in this day and age, I feel there is more to share about these people, and I would welcome the chance to get closer to them in a follow-up story. 

This is not a deeply involved or convoluted tale, though it definitely shows its expert teeth in the American justice system; it is simply a book about people tied together by one particular event – in this case, a murder.  It is not going to tie you in knots mentally; it is bedtime reading, and definitely worth a look.  I’d be interested to see more from Boyd.