November 2023 Monthly Reads
December 1, 2023
Protected: November 2023 | Recap
December 6, 2023
The Truth About the Devlins
Publishing Date: March 2024
My Rating:
TJ Devlin is the charming disappointment in the prominent Devlin family, all of whom are lawyers at their highly successful firm—except him. After a stint in prison and rehab for alcoholism, TJ can’t get hired anywhere except at the firm, in a make-work job with the title of investigator.
But one night, TJ’s world turns upside down after his older brother John confesses that he just murdered one of the clients, an accountant he’d confronted with proof of embezzlement. It seems impossible coming from John, the firstborn son and Most Valuable Devlin.
TJ plunges into the investigation, seizing the chance to prove his worth and save his brother. But in no time, TJ and John find themselves entangled in a lethal web of deception and murder. TJ will fight to save his family, but what he learns might break them first.
Trigger Warnings:
Major: Murder, Alcoholism
Minor: Child neglect/abandonment (very minor mention)
Characters
The Devlins
- TJ – recovering alcoholic, investigator for Devlin and Devlin
- John – TJ’s brother, the gold child; lawyer at the firm, ready to take over when his dad retires
- Nancy – John’s wife
- Connor – John and Nancy’s son
- Gabby – TJ’s sister, lawyer at the firm; advocate for pro-bono cases
- Martin – Gabby’s husband, surgeon
Other Characters
- Neil Lemaire – accountant for Runstan
- Stan Malinowski – owns Runstan, a company that is about to be acquired for a big payout by Vuarnex
- Carrie – TJ’s ex
- Emily – her young daughter
- Maya – TJ’s car handler’s daughters, he stands her up on a date
My Review
I enjoyed this book! It sucks you in from the first page. There is suspense, people following people, shady things going on. The main character is struggling with his alcoholism and trying to avoid drinking when things seem to be falling apart around him.
I was a little bummed at the ending because it all seemed a little too… repeated? of a storyline. But then there was a nice twist at the end that made it worth it! This was more of a slow burning suspense crime novel than a mystery. I loved that the ending tied things up in a way that made me feel like things were (mostly) resolved.
Thank you, NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.
Spoilers/Summary
Starts with the golden child, John, asking his alcoholic brother to help him. John thinks he killed someone – the accountant for the acquisition he is handling. He says he met a client and threw a rock at their head and thought he had killed him. TJ goes to help him figure it out. He is missing from the scene.
Backstory: TJ had been in jail for leaving his girlfriend’s toddler daughter unattended in the car while he went into a dive bar to get drunk. Now: He makes amends with her, tells her he’s sorry, they have sex — but then she tells him that she is engaged to another man.
TJ adopts Neil’s cat, snoops in Neil’s house for his files. TJ relapses once for real although John had told his whole family that TJ had relapsed to cover up his crimes.
Nancy and John were in the process of getting divorced, but John wanted them to keep it a secret. It had ben going on for a while. John emptied all of their bank accounts.
John had gotten into trouble with gambling debt. He thought he would make good money in acquisitions so needed this one to go through. He also had been skimming from the company by overcharging all of his clients for work. He was getting kickbacks from the clients – Neil got cold feet after the first time they did it and wanted to stop. They met in a parking lot to talk about it but someone pulled in and shot at John.. they killed Neil to cover up them being seen.
The FBI raids Devlin and Devlin because of John. Gabby had been the one to tip off the FBI because John had reported incorrectly to her friends she had referred to him. When the family finds out that is what happened, they were going to help cover it up as an accounting error and Gabby didn’t want that to happen so she called it in.
The shooters were actually related to the pro-bone case that Gabby was working on. They were working for big Pharma that had used people that were in jail to test product – leading to skin cancer on multiple people. The CEO of one of the companies paid a hit man to kill Gabby to keep her from going to trial with the case. They mistook John’s car for Gabby.
TJ figures it out, saves Gabby in the knick of time, their father pushes one of the gun men out of the way and gets shot.
TJ and Maya start dating at the end… TJ might go back to college.