Title: Personal Injury: A Corrupt Conspiracy

Author: Scott Johni

Genre: Crime / Thriller

 

When personal injury lawyer Nick Justin sends his wife, Andrea, to liaise with Mrs. Addison Slovin, a new client, whose husband, military investigator Major Charles Slovin, was involved in a fatal accident on the Gandy Bridge in Tampa Bay, he assumes it will be a routine meeting.

Later that day, Andrea’s vehicle is involved in a horrific crash on the same bridge. Attending officer, Gino Myers, reports finding an empty bourbon bottle and fentanyl in Andrea’s car, but not the hard drive that Addison Slovin handed to her.

Following a neatly written, measured Prologue, most of the action in Johni’s highly readable thriller takes place over eight days in August 2024. The first chapter is a blistering opener, taut, atmospheric, and palpable with impending doom.

The last moments of Major Slovin’s life are recounted in stark, visceral terms with an intense appeal to visualization that is compellingly uncomfortable. The early chapters in Personal Injury are intense, set-piece scenes that place the reader in the middle of the action while introducing the main protagonists.

Johni’s writing is raw, immediate, yet precise, taking in fine, surrounding details with forensic attention and revealing his characters’ emotional states and responses through their behavior. There is a slick, polished quality to his prose and a driving confidence to the novel’s tone, which is immediately reassuring.

Using a third-person perspective, Johni swings between individuals and their environments. His characters are types, but they’re portrayed with depth and originality. Johni lends them competing motives and desires, some of which are surprising, and their dialogue is easy and authentic.

He shares more knowledge about events with the reader than his characters, all racing against time, or each other, for differing reasons. Nonetheless, Johni ensures he teases the reader’s expectations and leaves enough convincing plot riddles to keep the pages turning.

The bones of the plot are relatively simple, but they stretch imaginatively in several directions involving a military contractor, a Venezuelan cartel, and a vicious street gang with a genius hacker, all of whom are facilitated and enabled by a deeply corrupt police unit. Johni carefully keeps the narrative tightly focused and never over-complicates a credible and intriguing story.

Nick is a strong, engaging character whom Johni quickly establishes in the reader’s mind without divulging too much background, cleverly leaving enough for later books while giving the reader all they require for this story. Jose Dominguez, Nick’s close friend and fraud investigator, is well-depicted, and Johni wisely does not overuse him.

However, some lesser characters who also provide vital information to Nick, such as Nurse Givens, Shandra Greene, and Eric Klein, do so too easily, furnishing him with nearly everything he needs to know without hesitation. It deftly propels the fast-moving plot forward, especially Shandra’s intelligence, but it feels convenient.

Notwithstanding, Officer Adams, a force of integrity, and the morally haunted Detective Hank Kitchens, who is undercover in the Bruth’rs street gang, are compelling additions who deserve reappearance in future books.

Rogue police thug Myers is powerfully menacing, and Johni weighs his conversations with just enough threat and unpredictability. The fights between Myers and Nick are sharply choreographed with exciting bursts of cinematic violence.

From the beginning, Sarah, Andrea’s sister, has an uneasy dynamic with Nick. There is an awkward ambiguity in their exchanges, and Sarah’s role in the plot is fairly obvious from early on. It does not spoil the final reveal but does make it slightly anticlimactic.

Personal Injury: Corrupt Conspiracy is an accomplished, pulse-pounding, and solid beginning to the Nick Justin Chronicles series. Well-plotted and intelligently written, Johni has produced a grippingly good crime thriller.

 

 

This Editorial Review was written by the Book Review Directory staff. To receive a similarly honest, professional review for one of your own books, click here.