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Book Summary and Reviews of Saving Emma by Allen Eskens

Saving Emma by Allen Eskens

Saving Emma

A Novel

by Allen Eskens

  • Critics' Consensus (3):
  • Readers' Rating (1):
  • Published:
  • Sep 2023, 336 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

A lawyer's race to reveal a wrongful conviction collides with the dark shadow of a murder in his own home in this propulsive and perfectly-plotted thriller from award-winning writer Allen Eskens.

When Boady Sanden first receives the case of Elijah Matthews, he's certain there's not much he can do. Elijah, who believes himself to be a prophet, has been locked up in a psychiatric hospital for the past four years, convicted of brutally murdering the pastor of a megachurch. But as a law professor working for the Innocence Project, Boady agrees to look into Elijah's file. When he does, he is alarmed to find threads that lead back to the death of his colleague and friend, Ben Pruitt, a man shot to death four years earlier in Boady's own home.

Ben's daughter, Emma, has lived with Boady and Boady's wife Dee ever since that awful night. Now fourteen years old, Emma has been growing distant, and soon makes a fateful choice that takes her far from the safety of her godparents. Desperate to bring her home, and to free an innocent man, Boady must do all he can to investigate Elijah's case while fighting to save the family he has deeply come to love.

Written with energy, propulsion, and his characteristic pathos and insight, Eskens delivers another pitch-perfect legal thriller that reveals a twisted murder and explores faith, love, family, and redemption along the way.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Ambitious, absorbing, and deeply satisfying." ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Eskens brilliantly combines legal and personal drama in this stellar standalone mystery... . Eskens peppers the thorny, propulsive plot with superior turns of phrase and fully realized characters. Scott Turow fans will be enthralled." ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Eskens practiced criminal law for twenty-five years, and it shows: his novels have a realism and accuracy derived from experience. A first-rate legal thriller." —Booklist

This information about Saving Emma was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Allen Eskens

Allen Eskens is the USA Today bestselling author of The Life We Bury, which has been published in twenty-six languages, and seven other novels, most recently Forsaken Country, The Stolen Hours, The Shadows We Hide, and Nothing More Dangerous. His books have won the Barry Award, the Rosebud Award, the Silver Falchion Award, and the Minnesota Book Award. Eskens is a former criminal defense attorney and lives with his wife, Joely, in greater Minnesota.

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