BOOKFINDS

8 in the Box by Raffi Yessayan

The harrowing scene is always the same: the home of a single woman, no signs of forced entry, no evidence of an intruder, and no victim—only a bathtub filled with blood. Newly promoted homicide detective Angel Alves wants to make his mark in the department and a difference on the streets, but tracking this elusive serial killer sorely challenges his commitment and skills. Meanwhile, assistant DA Conrad Darget has his own hands full mentoring an ambitious young law student and rallying his fellow attorneys in their daily courtroom battles. With each new attack the twisted mystery only deepens, and the hunger for answers—and action—intensifies. No sane mind could comprehend the dark design behind it all. And no one can anticipate the final fateful strokes that will lead to a shocking endgame.

Right from the start we learn that Eight in the Box is a legal term, referring to the number of people sitting on a jury. There are, quite literally, eight people in a box, in a courtroom, waiting to hear a trial and determine the fate of one person. There is a reason television shows like Law & Order have lasted as long as they have and keep multiplying, people love the dark side of the law. Raffi Yessayan writes about this gritty world with accuracy and doesn’t hold anything back. Yessayan, a former Boston prosecutor and now defense attorney, has walked the dark streets of Boston and writes from experience. In Eight in the Box we are immediately greeted with a brutal murder, a bathtub filled with blood and a serial killer, aptly named the “Blood Bath Killer.” Yessayan presents the reader with the facts and lets the story slowly unfold with spine-tingling details and a mysteriously cloaked killer named Richter. Yessayan will leave you turning the pages faster than you can say “Pahked the cah.” Move over Dennis Lehane, Boston has a new voice in crime fiction.