Thirteen: The serial killer isn't on trial. He's on the jury (Eddie Flynn Series)

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I'm not sure that I bought the 'gender and genetics' theme. The eponymous Variant Thirteens are human men, genetically modified to be as violent and selfish as our pre-civilisation ancestors, and are consequently feared by all and tightly regulated: living on reservations or registered. The hero, Carl, is a Variant Thirteen who has bought himself a little more freedom by taking a job hunting down other variants.

The character Fliss, goes on a journey throughout the book, I feel that her strength was always there, from the beginning, but her confidence in herself needed to come out. As the story progressed, we definitely saw her actions show us as a reader, that she was getting confident, but as a character she seemed to need a bit more convincing. The other characters were very stereo typical of the time, but the reader did see them actually not be who they were seen as in society. The characters interacted well, an convincing the reader was not hard, but we didn't get to see a lot of depth to them. Genetically modified humans is nothing new to SCI-FI but I haven't ran across any where the building material came from the savage hunter/killers that had long since been bred out of the human race. Carl Maralis is the product of such genetic engineering called Variant Thirteen. This is, uh, not my understanding of how evolution works. It can work very swiftly, when the selection pressure is strong enough, and it certainly isn't stopped by civilisation. If there's been a reduction in violence and selfishness, it's not because crowds of people were somehow capable of identifying and lynching the archaic violent men. It's because the slow process of the law has been weeding out the violent via the death penalty – and because hard-working co-operative people have better reproductive success. Clay begins the next tape as he sees Tony walking out of Rosie’s and getting in his car but not driving away. On this tape, Hannah reveals that the poem everyone at school was sharing around and analyzing in English class was actually hers— Ryan Shaver, the editor of the Lost-N-Found Gazette, stole it from her and made copies. Clay leaves Rosie’s. Tony calls him over and tells him to get into his car, revealing that he has the second set of tapes.While reading this book, I learned that it is actually the fourth in a series centered on Eddie Flynn. This actually impressed me because the main reoccurring characters are so well developed in Th1rt3en, despite their previous introduction. I really appreciated this, it allowed this book to standalone. So if you don't want to commit to a series, do not let that deter you from reading Th1rt3en. So what happens when you find you have a rogue juror!? One whose own agenda takes precedence over the actual evidence being presented? Perhaps even more disturbing…that juror is a serial killer! Eso sí, si quieres ponerle pegas, yo diría que ha querido rizar el rizo con el final, y se le ha ido un poquito la mano. Tras un juicio muy bien descrito, la resolución contiene bastantes tópicos. Todos muy americanos y cinematográficos. En definitiva, que no es comparable con los mejores Connelly o Grisham, por citar solo dos. Pero que si lo que buscas es mera evasión, es difícil que te defraude.

The narrative occasionally reaches for a more nuanced understanding of genetics. The Variant Thirteens are brutally raised and trained to be killers, so there is some nurture in there too. And there are hints of free will: some thirteens are capable of love, start secret families, make long-term intelligent plans. Perhaps they're not all monsters? But the way the characters talk about it is so clunky. Everything was too easy. I felt like there was no struggle or mistakes anywhere, it made it all too implausible. I needed some sort of real life close escape with the police or something! Joshua Kane is a Serial Killer. He is not who or what he seems. Little does anyone know that Kane has gotten himself a seat on Bobby Soloman’s jury. For what purpose exactly? Ha. I’m afraid I can’t say. What I can say is that I hope I never meet anyone like Kane. Sexual selection isn't considered at all. Variant Thirteens are apparently catnip to all women, who cannot resist their programming: I'm a huge fan of courtroom dramas and legal thrillers and this one did not disappoint. A celebrity named Robert Soloman is charged with murder and goes on trial, but his lawyer, Eddie Flynn sees that somethings just don't add up. Okay, Eddie is Brilliant!!This is one clever book. The author reminds me a lot of John Grisham, his earlier books. I love courtroom drama legal thrillers and I was tithe on the edge of my seat reading this one. I was hooked right from the beginning to the very end. There's also several other things about the book that bugged me...constantly. But rather than go into all my peeves pet and otherwise I'll simply mention how the plot and the story continues to get lost in all the political and other cometary that makes up the brave new world of the book. Every time I got involved in the novel it wandered off on some tangent. What happened to Adam’s parents (or adopted parents) ? - They were in the hospital and injured, which is quite worrying, but there’s absolutely no mention of them at the end. I would expect a brief mention of them. I was disappointed with this because it's blurb was so good! I love the idea and damn the cover but I had quite a few problems: