Thank you for the opportunity to preview The Silver State. This is a legal thriller centered on a prosecutor, Santi, who is defending a man for the murder of a young woman.
The man is sent to death row but years later the conviction is questioned and the is man may be innocent.
Santi feels compelled to do the right thing but it’s not an easy decision and task to undertake.
A bit slow but overall a good legal novel. 3 stars

This is a nice, solid character study in the workings of a public defender, probably one of the hardest jobs out there. There's a mystery that develops slowly, reminding you every little bit that there IS something sinister at work, but that it can get lost in the day to day minutiae of the main character's life. Until it's front and center. And then the story gets very VERY real.

This book was so good!! It kept me on the edge of my seat throughout the whole story, and it was full of so many twists and turns! I think it was well written with a great amount of thill and mystery. I really enjoyed it!!

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complimentary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!

Urza presents a grim reality of America's current legal system in a way that he is uniquely qualified to do as a former public defense lawyer. As someone fortunate enough to not be entirely familiar with the everyday proceedings of the law, but has a faint understanding of how arbitrary it is, I was dully shocked at Santi's exploits in court. However, while I enjoyed the general themes and how they were presented, that's just about all that I liked. The pacing was a bit off, with the novel starting off far too slow and the "plot twist", though a clever distortion of the typical innocent man in prison trope, came too late in the story to have any significance on the characters. Speaking of the characters, I didn't feel particularly connected to any of them--I felt like their characterization got so close to being relatable or appreciated, but there was just something missing. Overall, the story has a lot of potential, but it unfortunately misses the mark on pacing and characterization.