{ARC Review} Gods and Fathers by James Lepore

{February 3, 2012} {ARC Review} Gods and Fathers by James Lepore

From Goodreads: Matt DeMarco is an accomplished Manhattan attorney with more than his share of emotional baggage. His marriage ended disastrously, his ex-wife has pulled their son away from him, and her remarriage to a hugely successful Arab businessman has created complications for Matt on multiple levels. However, his life shifts from troubled to imperiled when two cops – men he’s known for a long time – come into his home and arrest his son as the prime suspect in the murder of the boy’s girlfriend.

Suddenly, the enmity between Matt and his only child is no longer relevant. Matt must do everything he can to clear his son, who he fully believes is innocent. Doing so will require him to quit his job and make enemies of former friends – and it will throw him up against forces he barely knew existed and can only begin to comprehend how to battle.

Gods and Fathers is at once a powerful mystery and a provocative international thriller, all of it presented with LePore’s signature fascinating characters placed in dire circumstances where every choice poses new and potentially fatal challenges.

Nationally bestselling author James LePore has established a reputation as a writer whose vividly drawn characters and morally complex plots have kept readers up to all hours turning pages. His new novel promises more sleepless nights and more nonstop thrills.

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Lepore never ceases to amaze me with his action packed, intricate, carefully planned legal thrillers. Every detail—from the dates, times, and places, to the characters’ dispositions—is carefully placed and adds to the authenticity of Lepore’s stories, leaving the reader questioning all s/he previously knew upon concluding the novel. Lepore’s newest release, Gods and Fathers, coincides with recent developments within the United States government and other countries, painting a fictitious, though chilling portrait of what could happen underneath the vast layers of “corrupt” political leaders. The fact that this novel is one hundred percent plausible adds to the intensity of the story as real situations in our not too distant past are referenced, solidifying feelings of an unmistakable true-to-life drama as the story unfolds.

Struggling with his own demons, Matt DeMarco is a very interesting, intense character. An extremely well know attorney in New York City, Matt has created multiple enemies in the process of putting criminals behind bars, but not all his personal choices lead to fame and glory. Lepore begins this epic novel with a prologue that drops the reader into the final summations of Matt’s first court case in 1993, a case in which Matt is prosecuting a young Arab man accused of murdering his sister for defacing his family. While it is apparent that Matt’s first court case will cast a ominous shadow on his the distant future, Lepore leaves its significance masked in darkness, slowly bringing the story full circle as Matt begins to uncover a vast conspiracy that began when he won his first court case so many years ago. Lepore’s ability to foreshadow yet keep his readers in sheer suspense is breathtaking, and his characterization is equally beautiful. Matt is a very real character, with conceivable issues; he’s not a perfect man by any means, and his constant battles against his demons adds immensely to this novel.

While there are multiple characters within this novel, Lepore does a phenomenal job fleshing them all out and presenting them in such a way that they are easy to follow throughout the story. I highly enjoyed meeting each character and learning how they fit into this intricately woven tale of international betrayals and I recommend it to any readers out there looking for a great mystery suspense novel, though I believe adults ages 20 and above will enjoy it more so than the younger generation due to the political nature of the novel. Four and a half stars.