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Book Summary and Reviews of The Hidden Man by David Ellis

The Hidden Man by David Ellis

The Hidden Man

by David Ellis

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  • Published:
  • Sep 2009, 336 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Jason Kolarich is a midwestern Everyman with a lineman's build and an easy smart-ass remark. He’s a young, intelligent maverick, but he’s also struggling with an overwhelming emotional burden—one that threatens to unravel his own life, and possibly the lives of those around him .

Twenty-seven years ago, two-year-old Audrey Cutler disappeared from her home in the middle of the night. She was never found. All the detectives had to go on were vague eyewitness accounts of a man running down the Cutlers' street, apparently carrying someone. Without enough evidence to suggest otherwise, Griffin Perlini—a neighbor with prior offenses against minors—was arrested, but never convicted.

The case is long closed when Perlini is murdered nearly thirty years later. Now a man named Mr. Smith appears in Jason Kolarich's office, saying only that he represents a third party who wants the man charged with murder off the hook and that Kolarich is perfect for the job. The new client: Audrey Cutler's older brother, Sammy—Kolarich's estranged childhood best friend—a man he hasn't seen in nearly twenty years.

But when Kolarich starts receiving violent threats from Mr. Smith’s enigmatic employer, he figures out that the secrecy behind this nameless third party—and the key to winning Sammy's case—is entangled with the mystery of Audrey's disappearance. With his own life and Sammy's in the balance, Kolarich has to put aside not only the mounting anxiety of the job but also a heart-wrenching personal tragedy in order to find out what really happened to Audrey all those years ago.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Ellis avoids clichés in a multilayered legal thriller that depends on precise character studies, an original plot and a surprising but logical twist at the end." - Publishers Weekly

"Edgar Award winner Ellis...has created an involving character...to build this new series around. Fans of Philip Margolin's thrillers, which shares similar pacing, grit, and character development, albeit with more violence, will enjoy this. " - Library Journal

"Plotting with Christie-like care, Edgar winner Ellis lifts the curtain on a promising new series." - Kirkus Reviews

This information about The Hidden Man 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

David Ellis

David Ellis is the author of five other novels, including Line of Vision for which he won the Edgar Award. An attorney from Chicago, he is currently Counsel to the Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives and served as the impeachment prosecutor in the Governor Blagojevich trial.

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