Proof

by Jon Cowan ★★★★☆

Jake West is a roguish lawyer, quick with a quip and fast on his feet. He's also an alcoholic—a functioning alcoholic, but an alcoholic nonetheless—and that trait combined with a penchant for seeing conspiracies where there may be none has him in hot water. He was censured after a case went south a year prior, and while he's still technically a partner and on the payroll of his father's law firm, he hasn't worked since the censure. That downtime has seen him lapse even further into drinking and depression. He's ruined his marriage, disappointed his children on countless occasions, and is on a collision course with rock bottom.

After trying to impress a date by cross examining her in a courtroom—after hours, and while drunk—a fellow partner and his best friend, Richie, is dispatched to collect him. Just as they're about to drive away, they get a knock on the passenger window of the car. The two men are blinded by a flashlight, presumably from a police officer. But when Jake rolls down the window to speak with the officer, a gun appears and shoots Richie in the head.

Jake swiftly becomes suspect #1—mostly because he foolishly picked up the dropped murder weapon at the scene—and suddenly he's staring at some very serious charges. He sobers up (for the most part) and embarks on a quest to clear his name and find justice for Richie. But as Jake digs deeper, bodies start piling up, and all signs seem to point to his own law firm being guilty. "Three cases and four murders connected in some mysterious way, having to do with a client at his own law firm. A fucking conspiracy. Except no one will believe him. They’d be 100 percent correct to doubt him."

Proof is better than average, but it's not without its flaws. Despite taking place in Los Angeles, a city canvassed with public and private security cameras, none managed to capture Richie's murder on video. Like that, there are other plot connections that are just a bit too convenient for my taste. Thematically, it covers a lot in under 400 pages—multiple murder mysteries, alcoholism and the strain it puts on a marriage, parent-child relationships (across generations), disparities of the law between rich and poor, and more—and it can feel a bit over-ambitious as a result.

That being said, it held my interest, and in its best moments felt reminiscent of early John Grisham, something adjacent to The Firm or The Pelican Brief. It's not on the same level as those blockbusters, but it's at least in the same zip code. The postscript suggests that author Jon Cowan is hard at work on "the next Jake West novel". It's a coin flip on whether I'll continue with the series, but it was a satisfying stand-alone legal thriller.