The tag line for this book is a real hook THE SERIAL KILLER ISN'T ON TRIAL. HE'S ON THE JURY... I know this because it pulled me in not once, not twice but three times.
The first time was when I received the email from Netgalley telling me the book was available to request, the second time was when I purchased the audio book from audible, and the third time was when I purchased a paperback copy. This is what happens when you forget what books you have. And yet, not once did I read the actual blurb for this book so I failed to spot that this is in fact the fourth book in the Eddie Flynn series, that being said you don't need to read the first three books to enjoy this one.

One of the things I loved about this book was getting inside the killers head, but still being completely oblivious to his real identity, knowing that he is working with someone but having no clue who that person could be. I loved following Eddie as he tries to pick his way through the case after being called in last minute. I didn't necessarily like being kept in the dark as he found clues to his clients innocence but it definitely added to the mystery as he revealed these things in the courtroom, and ramped up the excitement levels as the actual killer seethed from his seat on the jury as he felt his fellow jurors decisions being swayed.

I will be definitely looking for the first three books in this series and finding out more about Eddie Flynn.

I thought I was reading reading a John Grisham book, but no, this was better than the best. Couldn't put it down and had several heart stopping moments. Crime at its best.

This book was a proper cat and mouse thriller, gripping til the end. Enough twists and turns to keep the reader interested and well-written enough to be engaging throughout. I would definitely recommend his book to anyone who loves a “traditional” thriller.

These days you can not open social media such as Facebook and Twitter without someone gushing about this book. So I finally took the plunge over the weekend... and I can proudly admit, I made the dive, and now I see why they are gushing...
The blurb that sells the book is the byline of "the killer is already on the jury" sets the whole tone of the book. You know he is the bad guy, you can see what he is doing to get on the jury and what he's doing to stay on the jury.... Wow, evil personified!!
This was a brilliantly written book, gripping from the beginning and left me wanting for more and more!!!
Highly, and I mean it, highly recommended.

This is the first book by Cavanagh that I’ve read, and I’m part kicking myself for missing out on what is clearly a sharp and engaging series, and part excited that I have three more of his books to read while I wait for number five! I love a serial killer (book that is), but increasingly the plot tends to revolve around romantic tensions until it spoils the book. Not so with Thirteen. Yes, there is attention to relationships - and rightly so, nobody exists in a vacuum, but it is a sub-plot that seems to run through the series. None of the cliched ‘hate each other, but really we all know they’ll be ripping each others’ clothes off before the end of the book’ rubbish.
The plot is intricate but delivered effortlessly, with enough twists to deliver shocks and surprises without jolting the reader out of the story. The characters are clearly well established in the series but Cavanagh doesn’t waste time explaining unnecessary back stories, instead they all step onto the page fully formed and with a feeling of familiarity.
This isn’t a slice and dice, although where necessary we have detailed descriptions of murders so probably not for very squeamish readers. The procedural detail seems authentic to my untrained eye, with explanations that don’t bore or confuse.
If you enjoy a hard boiled detective you’ll love this book - don’t be put off by the court room setting; there is plenty of action for the most dedicated Die Hard fan. I’m 0ff you catch up on the first three now!

If you haven’t heard of this book you’ve probably not been on social media this year – not only has there been a concerted campaign to promote the book but I’ve yet to hear a bad word about it. The book is the fourth in the ‘Eddie Flynn’ series and despite not having been a huge fan of Cavanagh’s debut I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

Things have moved on for Flynn since the end of the first book, but not so much that I felt I didn’t know what was going on. He’s representing small-time clients, sleeping in his office and outsmarting the wrong people. Out of the blue he’s approached by a high-flying lawyer who wants Flynn to join him on a case representing a young Hollywood star, Bobby Solomon, accused of murdering his wife and chief of security. Initially reluctant to become involved Flynn is persuaded that the case isn’t as open and shut as it appears and his meeting with Bobby clinches the deal.

There are two points of view in the story – one is Flynn (in the first person) and the other is a mysterious character (third person) called Kane who is on a no-holds-barred quest that will see his involvement in the courtroom. Swapping between the points of view and knowing what’s happening (without perhaps understanding the purpose) is a great way of making the book compelling – you really want to keep reading to see how things will fit together.

I’m purposely trying to avoid spoilers, this is a book that would be better enjoyed letting it unfold as you read. There are some particularly devious moments and afterwards you do have to wonder how the author came up with them! Flynn remains a likeable character who takes his fair share of knocks – both physical and emotional – but has a decent moral compass. Kane on the other hand, despite being a monster, is depicted as being completely rational, although what’s acceptable behaviour to him isn’t quite the same as it is for the rest of us…

The Defence isn’t the first debut I’ve read where the author tries to pack too much in (and I don’t suppose it will be the last) and you wonder what the author has left themselves with for the future but in Thirteen Cavanagh shows that he can maintain the reader’s interest with fewer threads to the story but really smart plotting of those that remain. I can certainly see shades of early Scott Turow in this book and it’s going to be one to look out for on future awards lists.

Thirteen was a great book. It’s very addictive and I could not put it down. Written from defence lawyer Eddie’s point of view of a serial killer who isn’t on trial ..... he’s on the jury. A fab book.

Spinning a Courtroom Thriller on its Head!
I am a huge fan of courtroom/legal dramas and thrillers. I love the drama, the intrigue, the twists and turns, and the ingenious way in which a lawyer can turn a jury. My bookshelves are littered with the likes of Lee Child and John Grisham, so to combine these genres is my idea of book heaven.

Steve Cavanagh, unbeknown to me, was doing just that! He is a master of this combination, and I was hooked from the very first chapter. Thirteen, is a legal / courtroom based thriller that will leave you looking at a jury from a completely different angle.

Part of a series centered around the lovable character Eddie Flynn, this is the fourth installment. But worry not, each of Steve Cavanaghs books can be read standalone.

So what drew me to this book in the first place? Easy. The synopsis – they say never judge a book by its cover, but I confess it was the cover that totally had me hooked! It dragged me in with the hook of a serial killer sitting on a jury. So when I was given the chance to take part in an epic #BlogTour for this book before publication, I jumped at the chance!

‘To your knowledge, is there anything that would preclude you from serving on this jury?’

Murder wasn’t the hard part. It was just the start of the game.
Joshua Kane has been preparing for this moment his whole life. He’s done it before. But this is the big one.
This is the murder trial of the century. And Kane has killed to get the best seat in the house.
But there’s someone on his tail. Someone who suspects that the killer isn’t the man on trial.
Kane knows time is running out – he just needs to get to the conviction without being discovered.

A synopsis like that would have anyone hooked right? A killer on the jury? How can that even happen? Can he really get away with murder and put an innocent man away for it too? Surely not!

The idea that a murderer could be sitting on the jury watching the trial of someone he set up for the crime is just genius.

The book switches effortlessly between Kanes (the real killer) point of view and Eddie Flynn (con man turned lawyer) who is convinced that Hollywood heartthrob Robert Solomon is innocent – but he just can’t put his finger on why.

Robert was one half of Hollywoods biggest power couple, but when his wife and their head of security are found brutally murdered, Roberts fingerprints are all over the murder – but something just doesn’t sit right with Eddie and he sets out to find the connection between this murder and “Dollar Bill” – a potential serial killer being hunted by the FBI.

The only problem is – no one believes him and the evidence is not helping.

The plot for this story is original, cleverly constructed and quite literally mind-twisting. The first person point of view of Eddie really draws you into the character – but despite this being the fourth of his books, Cavanagh has written him in a way that allows you to read this as a stand-alone, but quickly intrigues you enough to want to go back and read the others. My amazon order may be a little Cavanagh heavy this week! Oops!

Kane’s character is written in the third person, leaving you just detached enough to feel a little unsure about his intentions. As the story builds you are left feeling the pace really pick up and conclusion of the book leaves you shocked, exhausted and satisfied in equal measure.

It’s not very often that a book lives up to the hype – but I certainly concur with Lee Childs assessment of Steve Cavanagh’s book “Outstanding – an intriguing premise, a tense, gripping build-up, and a spectacular climax. This guy is the real deal.”
I completely agree.

An intriguing storyline where the killer manages to get himself on the jury. How is that possible? Difficult, I know, but Steve Cananagh makes this seem plausible. I can imagine this would make a good movie.

The premise of the book really interested me. I've read many thrillers before but never when the killer was posing on the jury.

Steve Cavanagh is a new author to me and I found his writing style fluent. However I did feel that the story dragged a little and that there was a lack of pace to the book. It kind of ambled along with the killer picking off whomever he chose until the dramatic conclusion.

There were certain things I really liked about this book, the overall premise, the thing that made the killer unique and the reason why he had been able to evade the police for so long.

Overall I enjoyed the book but it didn't grip me.

Really enjoyed this book.............a true page turner. Not my usual genre but I had been fascinated by the description. Its about a serial killer who through various means gets himself on the jury of of the trials for the people he has set up for his serial killing.
Well writing.

An outstanding book with an unusual twist. The killer is in the jury. A brilliant well written book that will keep you hooked to the very end

The premise for this book was what drew in my attention: a murderer is fitting someone else up for his crimes and then has the audacity to place himself on the jury for the trial. It's evil, manipulative and simply delicious! Sadly, it didn't really live up to my expectations.

What I didn't realise was that this book is essentially a courtroom drama with some detective work and a bit of murdering rather than a long hard look into the twisted mind of a killer that I was expecting.

The chapters alternate between the perspectives of Eddie Flynn, tortured conman turned defense attourney and Kane, sadistic murderer. I found Flynn's chapters to be much more engaging than Kane's, as he was very much the driving force behind the story - the first half of which was a slow burn that I struggled to get through.

To me, this book had a deviously brilliant concept and wrapped it up in a load of old tropes that have never really done anything for me, from a killer with some kind of physical anomaly to incompetent police detectives that need the FBI and attourneys to run their investigations for them.

Hollywood star Bobby Solomon is in court for the murder of his wife & their body guard. He says he arrived home to discover the bodies at midnight. However all evidence points to him bein there at 9pm, having been caught on camera plus finger prints on a bat and a dollar bill stuffed into the victim, again with his finger print and that of a dead convicted murderer from 10 years previously. Eddie Flynn is a lawyer who is called in by big law firm to discredit the police,in this case especially the dollar bill evidence.

Once the jury are called, one person is determined to be on the jury no matter what and that's the killer, to make sure Bobby goes to prison. He has his own agenda for wanting him behind bars and its warped.

A twister of a story that grips you from beginning to end seen from the eyes of Flynn and the killer. . I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, liked the way Eddie Flynn, Harper and the FBI worked together to catch the real culprit.

Even though its the fourth book, I didnt feel I needed to read any from the previous ones to get what was going on.

If you could liken Thirteen to a cake, it would have all my favourite ingredients, It would have been well mixed over time, lovingly baked and once sliced; eaten with great gusto. Action packed from the outset, well thought out plot and great courtroom scenes. The maverick attorney Flynn, defending film star Bobby Solomon does himself no favours in outsmarting the NYPD. His skills at seeing an alternative angle to what is proffered as unquestionable evidence keeps the reader enthralled to the bitter end.

Really enjoyable courtroom thriller - a celebrity being tried for a murder he did not commit. But will the system deal with the fact that the real killer is on the jury? Interesting premise and Cavanagh moves the plot and draws the characters well, drawing the plot through to a great conclusion. This is the fourth novel featuring Eddie Flynn and this is a series worth trying.

Until I’ve come to write my review I had no idea it was number 4 in a series. This most certainly is going straight into my top 10 of the year. What a fab read, so well written and boy what a story. Fantastic concept that haves you on the edge of your seat. I’m not sure I will look at court room dramas in the same way from now on. Eddie Flynn is certainly not a man to mess with and I now cannot wait to go back and read his first 3 novels in this series. Brilliant.

I adore crime thrillers! Give me all the mystery, the twisted minds, the detectives or private investigators putting it all on the line to get their bad guy. It's a predictable story line, usually, which is part of why the genre is so comfortable. You go in expecting to be shocked, to be horrified but to know, in the end, that evil has been locked away and everything is once again safe. So naturally I jump at every chance to read a new thriller come my way and Thirteen was the latest. Thanks to Orion Publishing Group and Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.


Part of my love for psychological or crime thrillers comes from how they let us face the dark without forcing us to actually encounter it. Everyone has a bit of darkness inside them and always suppressing it can lead to bad things (watch The Babadook and you'll see why!). We also love to be horrified, it is why horror is such a potent genre. It goes back to Julia Kristeva's theory of the abject. It is what disturbs our normal order, it is how we define what is 'of us' and what isn't, it is how we place boundaries between our society and everything outside of it. We define ourselves by saying what isn't us or shouldn't be us. I think the same comes into play with these kinds of novels (and films). We read about what horrifies us, fear it, and overcome it, making these novels a kind of catharsis. Some of them are more on the pure entertainment side, while others dig more deeply into our psyche, but I enjoy almost all of them. And yet, as I said above, some of them can be a bit repetitive, the story lines of various novels blending into one another



Thirteen is a great twist on the usual psychological thrillers, as the blurb tells. Initially I was worried that too much had been given away. From the beginning we know of a killer trying to get on the jury for the trial of a murder most likely committed by him. From the very beginning we follow both Eddie Flynn, a lawyer standing up for the little folk, averse to corrupt police officers and overcoming his own personal demons, as well as Joshua Kane, the murderer, the mysterious jury member. My worry was how Cavanagh would maintain the novel's pace and suspense if both sides were plain to see for the reader, and the middle of the novel did flag here or there. Going through the trial, seeing it from both Flynn and Kane's points of view, was interesting but there is a sense of just waiting for the big reveal, for the moment when our hero and villain clash. Some of the twists were straightforward and expected, but then towards the end there was a twist that literally made me gasp out loud. And that is when I realized that Cavanagh had been playing with the reader and the genre. Just like both of the protagonists, we have certain expectations of where the plot will go, what the characters will do, who is good and who is bad. I majorly enjoyed the twist, but I still wish the cover and blurb didn't give quite so much away.



Steve Cavanagh knows what the readers want. His narrative is driven and moves at a good pace, not lingering too long on things that don't need it but providing enough background for his characters and their actions. Thirteen is less focused on the crime than on the legal side of things and Cavanagh really knows how to ramp up the tension of the courtroom. I had never read a Steve Cavanagh book before and only guessed around halfway through the book that it was part of a series. This is indeed the 4th book in Cavanagh's Eddie Flynn series, but thankfully there was no sense of having missed out on something. Everything I presume had come before was nicely fed into the narrative in a way that didn't feel forced. I didn't feel as attached to the characters as has happened before but I enjoyed spending a few hours in their company. I would definitely check out another Steve Cavanagh book, although I'm not necessarily out to hunt down the other Eddie Flynn books.

I really enjoyed Thirteen and its surprises. Cavanagh moved through his plot at a great pace and I always found myself curious as to where he would take us next. I'd definitely recommend this to any fans of legal and crime thrillers!

From the outset the reader knows the killer is on the jury, but which one of the jurors is it?
It was the strapline that grabbed my attention and drew me to this book, but the writing and the plot kept me gripped from the first page to the last. A fast-paced, intense, clever crime thriller. Would be very happy to recommend Thirteen to anyone who enjoys this genre.

With thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for supplying me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Brilliant. Having read the book I now realise that this is the fourth Eddie Flynn courtroom drama. The book is so good I wish I had read the others first. It zips along at a great pace adding numerous extra layers. Kane is a serial killer who frames his real victims for murders of people close to them. He ensures their conviction by being on the jury. Thirteen is a very clever, well-written book. Once started, it's difficult to put down. Can't wait for the next one.