Greg Iles usually doesn't disappoint, and as usual this was a great book. I am very tempted to give this book 5 stars. The plot was engaging that is for sure, and I kept wanting to see where it was going and how far up the conspiracy/cover up went. There is one giant flaw in this book, and that is one character in general. Olivia Marston. 
 I think this book would have been so much better if that character and her little dumb subplot had been completely removed. Or, perhaps if it just referenced the issue Penn Cage had with her. But the moment she showed up in the book, it took a giant down turn in how much I liked the book. I had to struggle to get past her annoying face and pretty much everything she did. She acts like a dumb horny school girl slut, who just happens to be drop dead super hot (how very cliche)and then out of the blue she is a top ace attorney at the end. There was just too much of a broad spectrum for me to believe, and then there is our hero Penn Cage who for some reason still has such a huge crush on the trollup that crushed his dreams of being with her when he was in high school. I mean this is just petty high school love, and she cheated on him, slept with hundreds of other people and even then he knew she did not love him. She was a compulsive liar, and a tramp. 
 When the story starts it is 20 years later and Penn has already moved on with his life, got married, had a child, and unfortunately his wife passed away. So he moves back to the city where his tramp ex, ex, ex, ex-girlfriend (tramp) lived. After 20 years, she should have been totally forgotten, but nope, Penn Cage still has these enormous feelings for her, despite having met a different woman along the way. I really can't wrap my head around his actions with her, he pretty much has this other woman, who as luck would have it, is described as being drop dead gorgeous, wealthy, she has the kind of breasts I like (two of them), also described as not being a tramp, and pretty much amazing in every way, and yet Cage wants to hook up with his long lost love and get sloppy one hundred and twenty seconds. GAG!!! 
 I'm actually getting sick to my stomach just thinking about that terrible plot line, oh and I forgot to mention it has been 20 years, Olivia was married, in the midst of a nasty divorce, had a kid, and yet she is supposed to still look the same as she did when she was a 17 year old tramp. - YAWN - Even at the end of the book, he finds himself thinking about her even though he won the other girl over. I like to try and put myself in the character's shoes, but I just can't get myself to cognitively regress to a High school mentality at the moment. I mean this guy is supposed to be a super smart attorney turned writer, yet his brain turns to diarrhea every time she shows up. I'm sorry, but after 20 years she pretty much would warrant about as much attention as a fart I let out in the bathroom two weeks ago. And it's not like they were even pen pals, he literally had practically zero contact with her for 20 freaking years. That equates to a "Hi, how are you?" upon meeting again, and after that, "Good to see you, take care." 
 Aside from her presence in this book, it really was an amazing ride, and I look forward to the next book in the series. However, if by some means this dumb jezebel shows up again, I may say fare thee well to Mr. Penn Cage and leave him to his mental squalor, and self-delusions of his "what might have beens". So in conclusion this gets 4 stars and Olivia Marston is a rotten tramp.