The Dead Room (edition 2002)

The book is an interesting read, with vivid characters and landscapes. However, there were several big plot holes and outlandish behavior that was distracted me and tainted the story. ( )

I ran across Ellis last year when I saw his mystery City of Fire recommended. It was the first in a new series with a detective named Lena Gamble, and after giving it 4½ stars I searched out the sequel, The Lost Witness, and gave it 4½ stars also. The Dead Room is an earlier suspense thriller about a young civil attorney drawn into a gruesome criminal case in his first few months on the job. At first taking part as a favor to his boss, and certain of the accused man's guilt, he gradually begins to see all is not kosher in Denmark (as it were). His boyhood as the son of an innocent man accused of murder pulls him in several directions, but even as it becomes more and more clear that the physical evidence points towards his client, his due-diligence investigation uncovers anomalies he's drawn to question.

OK, it's a well-used scenario, but Ellis does it justice, and I found myself tearing through it, staying up way too late last night trying to finish it. There are a few rough spots, in particular several places where the details are told, rather than shown, and an ending that stretches a bit too long after the emotional climax is reached. Still, this is quite the page-turner, and with all three of these books now read recently, I'm very surprised Ellis hasn't burst onto the suspense-reading public's consciousness. ( )