Bonus #6: While Justice Sleeps

Stacey Abrams. 2021.

A friend mentioned she was going to read this and I was under the impression that it was a new Stacey Abrams memoir, so I decided to host a pop-up book group to talk about it.  I was so confused and surprised when I started reading and discovered that it was indeed a novel.  I actually had to go back after the first chapter and start over when I realized I needed a completely different frame of mind to read this book.  On the second go, knowing better what I was getting myself into, I was really drawn in quickly and really couldn't step away from the story.  A cross between DaVinci Code and a John Grisham novel, I loved the mystery and suspense.  I particularly loved the smart cast of characters and how it wasn't clear who had ulterior motives.  A major bonus was that the legal issues were actually realistic.  Unlike Grisham and so, so many other legal thriller writers, Abrams seems not just to have a law school grasp of basic concepts, but an understanding of how her never-tested-before legal conundrum (beginning with a Supreme Court Justice in a coma) might play out in the legal system, not to mention all the goings in families and law firms when dealing with incapacity or end of life decisions.  I learned from book group that the science in the book also was rooted in knowledge, which was pretty impressive given its complexity as well.  No, the plot isn't perfect, but for this type of novel, that is a bar too high.  I found the plot complicated enough to keep my interest--there are a lot of characters to keep track of, for example--but light enough to whiz through it without it being taxing.  A definite "recommend."

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