I also received this book free from Goodreads.
My first impression was "what is the creepy material the cover is made of?" I had to cover it in saran wrap.
I have never read a William Manchee book before. I found the characters and the three cases they worked on interesting; but did no one edit this book before it was printed? There were errors every few pages. Starting with the very first page where Stan takes his cell phone from his pocket - in 1997 cell phones (actually still called mobile phones then) did not yet fit in a pocket.
The characters names are constantly incorrect, sometimes even in the same paragraph. Then there's all the incorrect punctuation. Someone has a real fixation on question marks.
And of major error are the skewered time lines of events. For example, on page 81 bottom of first paragraph, "Ram and his wife were alone talking to a police officer." Farther down the page, "After the officer left, Stan shook his head. 'Where's your wife?'
'I told her to go in the back room and lock the door.'
'Stan laughed. 'Well, you better go tell her the coast is clear.'"
Or how about page 151, where Paula receives the Motion To Consolidate but on page 172 she tells Bart she hadn't heard that the DA had filed a Motion To Consolidate?
And again on page 183 Stan says that Sandy's husband "Being an insurance agent I'm sure he had a boatload of insurance." However, Sandy's husband was John and he was in dry oil wells. Bill Rice was the insurance agent.
On page 169 Jodie is told that the aerobic classes are Thursdays at 3:30. On page 190 Jodie and Brandon invite Evelyn Sanders out to DINNER after class. Then Jodie goes back to the office and gets a phone call from Carl saying Evelyn was found dead in her backyard at 3:30 that day. How is that possible?
And my favorite, on page 243 why is the DA questioning the architect about the financial consequences to Wilkinson,et.al., due to the delay in the Highland Corners Project? Why would the architect have that information? Why didn't Paula object????????
One last one. Page 287 in Jodie's trail "The bailiff opened a side door and the twelve jurors...walked in. There were eight women and four men. Four were Black, three Latino, and seven Caucasian." (4+3+7 = 14)
Like I said earlier, putting aside all the editing errors which drove me nuts and really slowed down my reading, the characters were likable and their cases were an interesting mix.