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veronica87's review against another edition
2.0
Marcia Clark's first foray into fiction writing (yes, THAT Marcia Clark) sees her keeping to a subject she knows well, the legal system. This is her story of Rachel Knight, a District Attorney in Los Angeles, who uses all her legal - and sometimes not so legal - resources to get to the bottom of cases. The writing was a little simplistic and sometimes it felt like Clark was trying too hard to be cool with the dialogue but overall it wasn't a bad start. It might make a better impression in audiobook format so I'll keep that in mind if I get to the second book.
novelesque_life's review against another edition
4.0
4 STARS
(I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review).
Rachel Knight works for the DA's office under Special Assignments department. Her coworker and good friend, Jake, is found brutally murdered and leaves Rachel stunned. She has been told to stay away from his murder investigation and focus on his high profile case - a young girl was assaulted in her own home while her parents were in their room.
Rachel has never been good at listening and enlists best friend and homicide detective, Bailey to help her get close to the case. As she digs into Jake's life she may regret all the things she find and and there may be connections between the assault and Jake's murder
Marcia Clark is well known as the prosecutor for the O.J. Simpson case and when I heard she was writing novels I was a bit curious. I was gripped from the moment it started! While Clark will not win any literary prizes her novels are more suspenseful and engaging than Grisham's novels. She is right up there with Lisa Scottoline. Read or listen to audio like I did and you will not be disappointed.
(I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review).
Rachel Knight works for the DA's office under Special Assignments department. Her coworker and good friend, Jake, is found brutally murdered and leaves Rachel stunned. She has been told to stay away from his murder investigation and focus on his high profile case - a young girl was assaulted in her own home while her parents were in their room.
Rachel has never been good at listening and enlists best friend and homicide detective, Bailey to help her get close to the case. As she digs into Jake's life she may regret all the things she find and and there may be connections between the assault and Jake's murder
Marcia Clark is well known as the prosecutor for the O.J. Simpson case and when I heard she was writing novels I was a bit curious. I was gripped from the moment it started! While Clark will not win any literary prizes her novels are more suspenseful and engaging than Grisham's novels. She is right up there with Lisa Scottoline. Read or listen to audio like I did and you will not be disappointed.
kentucky_girl91's review against another edition
It was too slow, and not enough going on to keep my attention, but I may pick it back up at some point
I love a good legal thriller, and wanted to love this one. When I read the blurb it gave me all the SVU vibes and I knew i needed to give this one a shot. There were many great things about this book. Writing was great, world building was awesome, and character development was on point. characters felt real and could relate and love/hate characters. But I could figure out who did what before it was revealed, which took the fun and suspense out of it for me. There wasn't many surprises or plot twists.
This doesn't at all mean it was a bad book because Marcia Clark writes very well. It just was not my cup of tea, but it could be yours. so, grab a copy and see what it does for you!
I love a good legal thriller, and wanted to love this one. When I read the blurb it gave me all the SVU vibes and I knew i needed to give this one a shot. There were many great things about this book. Writing was great, world building was awesome, and character development was on point. characters felt real and could relate and love/hate characters. But I could figure out who did what before it was revealed, which took the fun and suspense out of it for me. There wasn't many surprises or plot twists.
This doesn't at all mean it was a bad book because Marcia Clark writes very well. It just was not my cup of tea, but it could be yours. so, grab a copy and see what it does for you!
dhilderbrand's review against another edition
3.0
I completely enjoyed this and immediately went to get the other books he has written. I loved the main character - there was some extreme storytelling at times . I found myself saying more than one (Really? Come on) but it flowed well enough that I did not care!
brinab67's review against another edition
3.0
Althugh I enjoyed reading the novel, I had difficulty connecting with Rachel.
sheldonnylander's review against another edition
2.0
Guilt by Association is a mystery novel by Marcia Clark, the lead prosecutor on the O.J. Simpson murder trial back in the '90s. The lead character, Rachel Knight, is a Los Angeles DA whose friend and colleague, Jake, is found dead in an apparent murder-suicide. While investigating this case, which she is warned to stay away from as it's supposed to be a federal case, she is also assigned one of Jake's unfinished cases, the rape of a teenage girl in the Pacific Palisades.
The novel takes the usual twists and turns that one would expect from a novel in the mystery genre, which I guess are now commonly referred to as “thrillers.” I really wanted to like Clark's debut effort into fiction more than I did, but there were just too many problems with it that stuck out. I can break this down by an analysis of the two most important elements for a mystery novel: plot and character. Yes, these tend to be very important in most novels, but let me go into detail as to why these stick out so much.
First, the plot. The plot in Guilt by Association is actually very well written and thought-out. I enjoyed most of the aforementioned twists and turns, and it's generally well structured and has a good pace to it. Plot is important to a mystery novel because it provides, well, the mystery. And Clark does a good job with it and shows a strong talent in this area. However, that's not to say that it's perfect. There are some slow parts to novel, mostly having to do with some dragged out descriptions. Also, close the end, the plot threads take an unbelievable, and in my opinion rather ridiculous, turn that made me slap my head not over the reveal but more out of frustration at the lack of plausibility. For an author who is going to great pains to be sure that we know this novel is set in the real Los Angeles, this made things seem suddenly unreal. The romantic side plot doesn't really seem to go anywhere, but I'm guesing that's something that would be picked up in later books, assuming this novel is intended to be the first in a series.
The second important element mentioned above is the characters. Characters in mystery novel reveal a lot about themselves, difference, “tells,” and make you care about them or identify with them as they go through the mystery. Mysteries tend to be heavily character-driven as the investigator (and the reader along with them) interviews them to determine the truth and whether anyone is lying. And this was where Guilt by Association falls flat on its face. I know that some people would like the spunkiness of the characters and what I could only describe as an attempt an Whedonesque dialogue (think “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” or “Firefly/Serenity”), but they instead came off as annoying. Combined with how most of the characters, primarily those working in law enforcement, come off as complete bad-asses in their jobs, and it winds up making the reader want to put some distance between themselves and the characters rather than draw them in and want to solve the mystery with them. I don't think I could stand another description of Rachel complaining about her healthy eating while being horribly tempted by the tastier food being ordered by the people she's with.
In addition, some of the descriptions can be long-winded. Yes, Los Angeles has bad traffic problems, but I think that anyone who doesn't live here already has a basic knowledge of that and isn't going to care, and those of us who do live here already have to deal with it and don't want to read about it. While it was interesting reading about some places I've been to and frequented around Los Angeles, at times it also feels unnecessary and gets in the way of the pacing.
Guilt by Association gets two out of five stars, meaning literally “it's okay.” Marcia Clark shows some talent, but this effort felt uncooked. I would be interest to see how her writing style develops in future works, and hope that she could work on the characters and the dialogue a little more to make them more believable and less irritating, especially since she clearly want to make the setting believable. But I would only recommend this novel for serious fans of the mystery/thriller genre. The rest probably won't be missing a whole lot if they skip it.
Note: This review is based on an uncorrected advanced reading copy that was provided to this reviewer for free through Goodreads First Reads.
The novel takes the usual twists and turns that one would expect from a novel in the mystery genre, which I guess are now commonly referred to as “thrillers.” I really wanted to like Clark's debut effort into fiction more than I did, but there were just too many problems with it that stuck out. I can break this down by an analysis of the two most important elements for a mystery novel: plot and character. Yes, these tend to be very important in most novels, but let me go into detail as to why these stick out so much.
First, the plot. The plot in Guilt by Association is actually very well written and thought-out. I enjoyed most of the aforementioned twists and turns, and it's generally well structured and has a good pace to it. Plot is important to a mystery novel because it provides, well, the mystery. And Clark does a good job with it and shows a strong talent in this area. However, that's not to say that it's perfect. There are some slow parts to novel, mostly having to do with some dragged out descriptions. Also, close the end, the plot threads take an unbelievable, and in my opinion rather ridiculous, turn that made me slap my head not over the reveal but more out of frustration at the lack of plausibility. For an author who is going to great pains to be sure that we know this novel is set in the real Los Angeles, this made things seem suddenly unreal. The romantic side plot doesn't really seem to go anywhere, but I'm guesing that's something that would be picked up in later books, assuming this novel is intended to be the first in a series.
The second important element mentioned above is the characters. Characters in mystery novel reveal a lot about themselves, difference, “tells,” and make you care about them or identify with them as they go through the mystery. Mysteries tend to be heavily character-driven as the investigator (and the reader along with them) interviews them to determine the truth and whether anyone is lying. And this was where Guilt by Association falls flat on its face. I know that some people would like the spunkiness of the characters and what I could only describe as an attempt an Whedonesque dialogue (think “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” or “Firefly/Serenity”), but they instead came off as annoying. Combined with how most of the characters, primarily those working in law enforcement, come off as complete bad-asses in their jobs, and it winds up making the reader want to put some distance between themselves and the characters rather than draw them in and want to solve the mystery with them. I don't think I could stand another description of Rachel complaining about her healthy eating while being horribly tempted by the tastier food being ordered by the people she's with.
In addition, some of the descriptions can be long-winded. Yes, Los Angeles has bad traffic problems, but I think that anyone who doesn't live here already has a basic knowledge of that and isn't going to care, and those of us who do live here already have to deal with it and don't want to read about it. While it was interesting reading about some places I've been to and frequented around Los Angeles, at times it also feels unnecessary and gets in the way of the pacing.
Guilt by Association gets two out of five stars, meaning literally “it's okay.” Marcia Clark shows some talent, but this effort felt uncooked. I would be interest to see how her writing style develops in future works, and hope that she could work on the characters and the dialogue a little more to make them more believable and less irritating, especially since she clearly want to make the setting believable. But I would only recommend this novel for serious fans of the mystery/thriller genre. The rest probably won't be missing a whole lot if they skip it.
Note: This review is based on an uncorrected advanced reading copy that was provided to this reviewer for free through Goodreads First Reads.
cowmingo's review against another edition
2.0
Received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Dear Marcia Clark:
We get it. You know the law. You can write about the law. You know your adjectives and can use them in a sentence. You are a big supporter of girl power and I love you for that. But we don't need you to hit us over the head with it. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt here as this is your first book and hope that things improve as the series continues. I look forward to more Rachel Knight and hope for less I'm a lawyer, I can write as she finds her ground.
Dear Marcia Clark:
We get it. You know the law. You can write about the law. You know your adjectives and can use them in a sentence. You are a big supporter of girl power and I love you for that. But we don't need you to hit us over the head with it. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt here as this is your first book and hope that things improve as the series continues. I look forward to more Rachel Knight and hope for less I'm a lawyer, I can write as she finds her ground.
rachelini's review against another edition
3.0
Cross between stereotypical chicklit and suspense. Entertaining enough, but completely forgettable.
johnnyb1954's review against another edition
4.0
This is a 3.5 rounded up. Really good for a for a first in a series. It's kind of a prosecutor and police procedural. The mystery is pretty well plotted. The negatives were pretty minor - the main complaint being that Rachel Knight is constantly worried about her weight and perpetually jealous of what her friends are eating. But she does not have a moment of concern about the calories in her two or three martinis seemingly every day.
I like the character and the writing and will read more.
I like the character and the writing and will read more.