ABOUT THE BOOK

A beaten homeless vet. Three cops gunned down. A multistate manhunt. The trial of the decade.

A new kind of legal thriller.

When a homeless war veteran is beaten to death by the police, stormy protests ensue, engulfing a small New Jersey town. Soon after, three cops are gunned down.

 A multi-state manhunt is underway for a cop killer on the loose. And Dr. Tessa Thorpe, a veteran’s counselor, is caught up in the chase.

Donald Darfield, an African-American Iraqi war vet, a war-time buddy of the beaten man, and one of Tessa’s patients, is holed up in a mountain cabin. Tessa, acting on instinct, sets off to find him, but the swarm of law enforcement officers gets there first, leading to Darfield’s dramatic capture.

Now, the only people separating him from the lethal needle of state justice are Tessa and aging blind lawyer, Nathaniel Bodine. Can they untangle the web tightening around Darfield in time, when the press and the justice system are baying for revenge?

MY REVIEW

Something like this utterly destroyed a veteran’s fragile sense of validation, the affirmation that what he or she went through had meaning and was worthy of honor. To come home through all the risks and horrors, only to be beaten to death after returning to the country that you fought for, was an irony that pierced the heart.

Jay Felson, homeless man, marine, son of a Colonel in the United States Marine Corps, is beaten to death by three police officers. When the three policemen are not indicted for the brutal murder of a veteran of the United States someone makes sure those policemen will pay. But who was it?

This is one of the best legal thrillers I’ve read in a long time. Mr. Lombardi throws you into the story from page one and keeps you reading into the night.

The characters are diverse and authentic from Dr. Tessa Thorpe who is a warrior for her patients to my favorite character prosecutor Nat Bodine who is a bulldog for his clients. They both want justice, but at what cost?

This book covers homelessness, PTSD, racism, and corruption. It is also full of secrets and surprises with a plot twist at the end.

One of my favorite suspense novels of the year. It will make you question the legal system. Highly recommend.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

N. Lombardi Jr, the N for Nicholas, has spent over half his life in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, working as a groundwater geologist. Nick can speak five languages: Swahili, Thai, Lao, Chinese, and Khmer (Cambodian).

In 1997, while visiting Lao People’s Democratic Republic, he witnessed the remnants of a secret war that had been waged for nine years, among which were children wounded from leftover cluster bombs. Driven by what he saw, he worked on The Plain of Jars for the next eight years.

Nick maintains a website with content that spans most aspects of the novel: The Secret War, Laotian culture, Buddhism, etc. http://plainofjars.net

His second novel, Journey Towards a Falling Sun, is set in the wild frontier of northern Kenya.

His latest novel, Justice Gone was inspired by the fatal beating of a homeless man by police.

Nick now lives in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Follow on Goodreads and his website.

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