Cost of Malice: A Jake Clearwater Legal Thriller (Jake Clearwater Legal Thriller Series)

Cost of Malice is the third book in the Jake Clearwater Legal Thriller Series. When Nancy Seah takes a seat in Professor Jake Clearwater’s criminal law class, Jake can only wonder what the District Attorney could want from him. It turns out she is looking for a “top-flight prosecutor.” The deal includes Jake taking a one-year leave from his teaching position and becoming one of the DA’s frontline prosecutors. He would also be put on the DA’s Advisory Committee, a group better known as “The Elders.” This catches Jake’s attention, and he agrees to take the position.

Readers are introduced to The Elders, which includes Seah and three other prosecutors. This group reviews the most difficult cases and discusses them. From there, the cases are distributed to the attorneys.

In this book, Jake takes on three very intricate cases. The reader follows Jake into the courtroom, where he works his magic one witness at a time.

The first case Jake takes on is that of the murder of an eighteen-year-old girl named Tracie Switzer, who was found in her truck. murdered. Jake is able to find two degenerates who are incarcerated in separate states to not only snitch on the murderer but also testify in exchange for a reduction in their sentences. This is not an easy feat since one of the men is in Nevada. Because Nevada doesn’t benefit from a case across state lines, Jake must make the importance of his case clear to the State of Nevada.

An observation I made about this book is that it had an excessive amount of dialogue and the main points of each case were stated multiple times. I would have liked to have had either the synopsis of the case as discussed by the Elders told in more detail or had the dialogue contain more detail so that the information did not become repetitive. Because the dialogue is laid out as the case is told in court, I believe the details would have been more effective here.

Overall, the cases Jake encounters in this book and their realism make Cost of Malice entertaining and fascinating. With themes such as the Second Amendment, child abuse and neglect, and courtroom politics, this book is sure to keep its readers engaged from cover to cover. This book is perfect for fans of legal thrillers and mysteries that are led by an intelligent, likable attorney.