The Perfect Marriage by Adam Mitzner. Didn't think to much of the characters. The best of the lot was Haley, James' over the top crazy ex wife. James and Jessica didn't have much depth and were unlikable. The story started out slowly. The courtroom scenes was what made the story interesting.

Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for the opportunity to preview the book.

James Sommers has been married to his wife Jessica for a year and they are celebrating their one year wedding anniversary.

Jessica’s ex-husband Wayne Fiske will also attend even though people think he’s naive.

A man named Reid Warwick is looking forward to meeting with James. He hopes to use James’s connections as an art dealer to sell some art paintings.

Following James’s meeting with Reid, James is found murdered. Who murdered him and why? Overall an interesting story. Would recommend

Thank you to Adam Mitzner, NetGalley, and Thomas & Mercer for the ARC of this book

Adam Mitzner is a great legal thriller writer. He’s one of those authors whose books I eagerly anticipate and pre-order without even reading the blurb. As an attorney and former prosecutor myself, I am a little picky about my legal thrillers. I want them to be more interesting and exciting than my real-life lawyer job, but also still in the realm of believability and legal accuracy. Mitzner ALWAYS delivers on this, with great writing, interesting and twisty plots, and fantastic and legally accurate courtroom scenes.

This book was good, especially the last 30 percent or so, but not one of my favorites of Mitzner’s. I felt it spent a bit too much time on the setup, with a lot of details and plot points about the underground art world that weren’t too dramatic or strictly necessary to the story. Or maybe this is just not an area that interests me. Regardless, it took until about 40 percent in for anything super interesting to happen. But from that point, we were off to the races.

At the end of the book is where the special Mitzner magic comes in. An ingenious and unexpected plot twist combines with Mitzner’s usual fantastic courtroom scenes to make this a really neat story. Here too, as always in Mitzner’s books, the reader gets great courtroom scenes peppered with accurate caselaw so that you might learn something new about the law. If the rest of the book had been like the last 30 percent, this would’ve easily been a 5* star book. (I also imagine Mitzner must be a fantastic trial attorney, because all his books are filled with these wonderful direct and cross-examination scenes.) I truly did not see this ending coming and think few people would. Really awesome.

All in all this was a very enjoyable second half of a book - just wish we had a little more magic in the first half too. I still definitely recommend this book, I think I just have high standards for one of my favorite legal writers. I highly, highly recommend Mitzner’s previous works, A Conflict of Interest and A Matter of Will (my fave!) for some more traditional and lengthy courtroom thriller action. And as ever, I eagerly await Mitzner’s next book!

3.75 stars rounded up for that ending that only Mitzner can perfectly deliver.

Thanks to Thomas & Mercer, Adam Mitzner and NetGalley for a very anticipated book to read in advance!