Bleedout Joan Brady Simon & Schuster £12.99 hbk Apr 2005 Matt Craig

Hugh Freyl is a rich and respected lawyer in his hometown of Springfield. He is blind after mysteriously and suddenly losing his sight in an airport as a younger man. He is also dead, brutally beaten in the library of his law offices. David Marion, jailed as a child for the brutal murder of his foster-father and -brother, is a free man because of Freyl's long years of campaigning. Unfortunately, the circumstances of Freyl's murder are a little too close for comfort to Marion's childhood crime and he becomes the prime suspect. When he is hired by Freyl's mother (a woman who is not entirely convinced of his innocence) to investigate her son's death, Marion uses it as an opportunity to clear his name.

Bleedout is Joan Brady's first venture into the world of thriller-writing. The book tells two separate stories, intertwined cleverly throughout the book in such a way that a revelation in one story quickly leads to something enlightening in the other. The first story is told by Freyl, from beyond the grave, and tells of how he met the young David Marion and of his campaign to first move him from Federal prison to a juvenile facility, and then to have him released completely by proving, if not his innocence, then at least the incompetence of the original prosecution. The second story centres on Marion and his investigation into Freyl's death and the trouble that his investigation brings.

For a first-time effort, this is an outstanding book. Tightly-plotted and fast-moving, it is the type of novel that will grab the reader's attention at the first page and hold it throughout. It's a clever book, and Brady holds her cards close to the chest until she's ready to reveal that next important piece of information, making the plot one of the most unpredictable I've read in awhile. The outcomes to both stories are almost impossible to guess early in the book and finally, when all is revealed, it will leave the reader with a sense that this is a very accomplished writer doing what she does best.

Pick this up and give it a try. We can only hope that Brady sticks around in the field for awhile longer and provides with more of the same.