About the Author

David Hosp is a trial lawyer who spends a portion of his time working pro bono on behalf of wrongly convicted individuals. He finds time to write his novels on his daily commute by boat across Boston harbour. He lives with his wife and family in the city.

Reviews

The real-life 1990 theft of paintings currently valued at half a billion dollars from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and never recovered provides the backdrop for Hosp's overly ambitious art world thriller. In the present day, lawyer Scott Finn thinks he's just helping an old friend, Devon Malley, out of a jam by representing Malley after Malley is arrested for knocking off a high-end clothing store. But when prominent members of Boston's criminal underworld, all of whom have connections to Malley, start turning up dead and show hallmarks of IRA-style torture, Finn realizes he has a much bigger case on his hands. Twenty years earlier, Devon helped rob the Gardner museum along with ex-IRA operative Liam Kilbranish, who has returned to exact revenge on the people he believes hid the paintings. Despite the promising premise, Hosp (Innocence) quickly gets mired in myriad needless side plots, all of which distract from the allure of the famous heist. (Jan.) Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

In Hosp's third thriller featuring attorney Scott Finn (after Innocence), Devon Malley, a small-time thief caught red-handed stealing high-end women's underwear, asks for Finn's help not only with the charges against him but also with his daughter, who's on her own now that he's in jail. Finn reluctantly agrees to help on both counts but realizes that something bigger is going on when the two contacts Malley sends him to for information that might help Malley make a deal with the cops turn up dead. Signs indicate that there is IRA involvement in the murders. Twenty years ago, when $300 million worth of art was stolen from a Boston museum, there were rumours that the IRA was responsible. Now it appears that someone is back looking for the art and that both Malley and Finn and his associates are directly in the killer's line of fire. VERDICT Thriller readers won't be disappointed with the plot twists and surprise ending here, and Scott Finn fans will cheer his return.-Lisa Hanson O'Hara, Univ. of Manitoba Libs., Winnipeg Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.