The Ex

When the daughter of Jack Harris begs lawyer Olivia Randall to defend him on a murder charge, Olivia is conflicted. On the one hand, although he has motive, Jack is her ex and she is positive he is innocent; on the other hand he is her ex and he has motive. But, partly out of guilt about how she treated him in the past, she agrees to take the case. However, the further she digs, the higher the evidence against Jack piles up. She begins to suspect that everything she thought she knew about her ex may be a lie, that, maybe, if you’ll pardon the pun, she really doesn’t know jack about Jack.

The Ex is a legal thriller by author Alafair Burke and the first book I’ve read by her. Fortunately, this works as a standalone. The novel feels show more realistic as Olivia and her team wade through the evidence and as she deals with an uncooperative client who she has personal issues with as well as the prosecution’s tricks. My biggest problem with the novel was Olivia herself; she definitely seems like a lawyer, in fact almost stereotypically so, but she just isn’t particularly likeable at least for most of the novel. On the other hand, it is a sign of Burke’s talent as a writer that, as Olivia begins to have doubts about Jack, she develops insights about herself. That aside though, I quite enjoyed The Ex. It is a compelling and suspenseful thriller and, if it isn’t edge-of-your seat nail biting action, it is intelligent with complex characters. This may be the first book I have read by Burke but it definitely won’t be the last. show less

Olivia Randall is one of New York City’s best criminal defense lawyers. When she gets a call about her ex-fiancé, Jack Harris, being arrested for a triple homicide, she knows two things: 1. He didn't do it, and 2. This is her chance to make it up to him.

Jack Harris is a widow. He hasn't been interested in women since his wife was shot and killed three years ago. But on his early morning run along the Hudson River he spots a beautiful woman in last night's party dress, barefoot, drinking champagne out of a bottle and reading his favourite book. He tells his good friend Charlotte about the sighting and she immediately puts up a "missed moment" post on her popular website. Days later the beautiful woman responds to the "missed moment" show more post, gets in touch with Jack and invites him to meet her in person at the waterfront.. where a triple murder takes place at the same time they were scheduled to meet.

I thought this book was clever. It's full of twists and turns that kept me guessing. I was convinced Jack was innocent one minute and then I was convinced he was guilty the next - this went on throughout the whole book. It was well-written, not too bogged down with legal terms. The ending wasn't quite what I wanted it to be, but it's still a five star read. show less

The Ex by Alafair Burke
4★'s

What's It About?
Twenty years ago she ruined his life. Now she has the chance to save it. Widower Jack Harris has resisted the dating scene ever since the shooting of his wife Molly by a fifteen-year-old boy three years ago. An early morning run along the Hudson River changes that when he spots a woman in last night’s party dress, barefoot, enjoying a champagne picnic alone, reading his favorite novel. Everything about her reminds him of what he used to have with Molly. Eager to help Jack find love again, his best friend posts a message on a popular website after he mentions the encounter. Days later, that same beautiful stranger responds and invites Jack to meet her in person at the waterfront. That’s show more when Jack’s world falls apart.

What Did I Think?
I really enjoyed this book. The characters that Burke has created are so much like real people...not always likable but ever changing...sometimes for the good and sometimes not. The story itself is rather complicated but not to the point of loosing the reader. We learn about past history and how and if it affected current situations.

The Ex will appeal to those that like crime novels mixed with mysteries and legal thrillers. I highly recommend it. show less

The EX by Alafair Burke is a 2016 Harper publication. I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher and Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

The legal thriller has gone through many adjustments, especially over the last five or six years. Courtroom dramas appear to be dead in the water as fewer attorneys actually step foot into a courtroom anymore.

Now, so called legal thrillers have lawyers doing all the crime solving, making them more like amateur sleuths than attorneys. No one ever sits on the stand, there are no judges or juries and the nuances of criminal court trials have disappeared entirely.

But, that is not the case with this book and for that reason alone, I intended to give the book a solid rating, but as it show more turns out this was a very compelling read that went beyond the legal wrangling.

Olivia had a five- year relationship with Jack, but the two were incompatible and she wound up hurting Jack very badly by making some very bad decisions. She hasn’t seen Jack in many years, but she knows he eventually married and has a daughter. However, his happiness was short lived due to the tragic shooting death of his wife.

Now the man Jack holds responsible for the shooting has been shot and killed and of course Jack is suspect number one. Olivia agrees to take his case, despite the obvious conflict of interest, mainly due to her feelings of guilt about how things ended between her and Jack.
Olivia is positive Jack could never do what he is accused of, but the more evidence that pours in, the more people who come forward with tales of Jack’s dark side, the more Olivia begins to suspect her client is guilty.

I was riveted to this story from the get go. The plotting and planning is very rich in details, with several breathtaking twists and turns along the way. I have read many legal thrillers in my day, and I have to admit I had suspected what the outcome would be, but I was never over confident about that, always having a reasonable doubt about what really happened.

Olivia is a character I couldn’t help but like, despite some things she did in her past that were really terrible. She still has some morally questionable traits when it comes to relationship choices and she drinks a lot, beats herself up over how she treated Jack, something I suspect has left her unsettled for many years, but she does her job exceptionally well. She grows as a person throughout this case, and I think maybe she was able to put some lingering demons to rest at last.

This case is perhaps a little bit of a cautionary tale, proving cause and effect. One person’s actions can cause a chain reaction that not only affects their lives but many others. Despite what one might think, at the end of the day, the outcome really gave me something to think about. Of course, I can’t expound on that here without giving anything away, but I think this story has some deeper messages beyond what appears on the surface.

The atmosphere was heavy and tense from the beginning and the conclusion is creepy, and left me feeling as though Olivia will have to deal with the fallout of this case for a long time to come and that someday another shoe will drop and when it does, it won’t be pretty. But, until then, I think Olivia came out of the situation a much more balanced person with a more settled life and at long last has put the past in its proper perspective and place.

I wouldn’t mind seeing her in action again someday.

Overall this one gets 4.5 stars. show less

I didn't really know what to think of this book until about a quarter of the way through it. I liked the story and the characters right off, so that's good, but I kept waiting for the bad part to come. I don't know why I had a bad expectation; I think I had another author mixed up with this one. I liked the lawyer, Olivia, and Jack seemed like a good guy, even if Olivia kept coming up with all her reasons for why he might not be such a good guy anymore. (Geez, who's a great guy after life beats you down time after time, give him a break, lol) I even liked the teenage brat and the acerbic friends. So I read the book quickly and want more. My biggest gripe would be my kindle said I was 90% finished when I was done with the book when the show more book ended. I hate that. Then came acknowledgments, next book junk, etc. No thanks. show less

Even two decades later, New York criminal defense lawyer Olivia Randall has never quite forgiven herself for the unnecessarily cruel way she broke up with her fiancé, Jack Harris. Subsequently, however, Jack seems to have found happiness in his career as a best-selling novelist and on the family front with his wife Molly and teenage daughter Buckley. But that happiness was merely a respite. Three years before the novel begins, a mentally disturbed fifteen-year-old murdered thirteen people and injured many more in a Penn Station shooting. One of the dead was Molly Harris.
The boy was the son of prominent investment banker Malcolm Neeley, who’d refused to get the boy treatment or do “anything that would label his son as ‘sick.’” show more The outraged families of the victims, led by Harris, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Neeley, a suit recently dismissed by the court.
The book opens with the transcript of a police station interview with Harris. An NYPD detective is looking for information about a shooting that occurred earlier in the day: “Boyle: Okay, I’ve turned on the machine, Mr. Harris. Just to make clear, are you here at the First Precinct voluntarily?” Then, “And you’re willing to speak to me of your own accord?” You know immediately that Jack has already made a colossal mistake. He’s talking to the police without a lawyer.
Their flimsy excuse for taking him to the station for the interview, the pretense of needing to put the interview on tape because they’re talking to so many potential witnesses, all are bright flashing neon letters reading, “you’re in the deep water now, Jack!” The interview tells you a lot about Jack as well as the trouble he’s likely in. when the police reveal that one of the three people killed in that morning’s shootings is Malcolm Neeley.
Partly out of her own past guilt and partly because she can’t imagine Jack committing any crime remotely close to a triple murder, Olivia takes on Jack’s case. One of her first challenges is trying to unravel the puzzling sequence of events that lured Jack to the vicinity of the shootings in the first place. It seems to have been an elaborate ruse involving a woman, a book, and a picnic basket, with a big assist from social media. Did this woman even exist?
In her Internet research, especially, Olivia is aided by her office assistant Einer, a smart and savvy young man with a gift for sarcasm. Many of the other secondary characters come across strongly too in Burke’s skilled hands.
In the face of mounting evidence and doubts about Jack, Olivia can’t help but wonder, is this the same man I knew two decades ago? Can you ever really know what someone else is capable of? These are not uncommon questions, and the final reveal is fairly familiar territory as well.
In The Ex, you see a civilized, realistic New York City—not the city of top-to-bottom corruption in Don Winslow’s summer hit, The Force. Burke’s is a city of private schools, functioning public services, trendy night spots, and Armani.
On the short list for an Edgar Award in 2017, this is Alafair Burke’s eleventh crime thriller. She is a professor of criminal law in New York, a former prosecutor and has good genes. She’s the daughter of acclaimed thriller writer James Lee Burke. show less

Olivia Randall has few regrets in life, but she does regret the way her relationship with Jack Harris ended twenty years ago. When she receives a frantic phone call from Jack's daughter, Olivia does what she thinks is right and heads to the police department to help out her former fiancé in Alafair Burke's latest thriller, The Ex.

Olivia Randall met Jack Harris in college. Their relationship went from being friends to lovers and eventually they became engaged. Unfortunately, Olivia wasn't quite ready to settle down and took advantage of Jack's kindness during the last year of their engagement. The end came after Jack discovered proof of one of Olivia's liaisons in their apartment. The engagement was over and Jack moved on. Then Jack's show more wife was murdered in a mass shooting at Penn Station. The general opinion was the father of the shooter should have been responsible for his son's actions since it was known the teenage boy had mental health issues and the father supported the boy's access to guns. Now that father has been found shot to death in a spot where Jack had been waiting for a date. The police feel they have the right man, but Olivia feels differently. Over the course of her investigation into Jack, his marriage, his wife's murder, and his life after, she uncovers one too many secrets that lead her to change her belief in Jack's innocence. Olivia begins to feel as if she never really knew Jack and fears she's being manipulated. Can she find answers to her burning questions about Jack and his past?

I found The Ex to be an intriguing and engrossing fast-paced read. Ms. Burke has crafted a scenario that is not only wholly believable but tragically realistic. Olivia is a forty-something lawyer struggling with her guilt over past behavior. Jack is a forty-something author struggling to forgive Olivia and keep secrets. Buckley, Jack's teenage daughter, is overwhelmed with guilt over her mother's death (read the book to find out why) and wants to keep her father out of prison. The Ex is part legal thriller, part psychological thriller, part suspense thriller, and one darn good read. I enjoyed all of the characters and found most of them to be deeply flawed but likable. Just when you think you might have things figured out, Ms. Burke throws in a nice twist (or two) to keep you guessing. I can always count on Ms. Burke for a well-crafted and well-written story. If you enjoy suspense thrillers, legal thrillers, psychological thrillers, or are just looking for something a little different to read, then I strongly urge you to grab a copy of The Ex. show less