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The Missing Piece
Kirkus Reviews named Midnight, Kevin Egan's first diabolically twisty legal thriller, a "Best Book of 2013." Now Egan returns to the bench with The Missing Piece, an all-new tale of courtroom intrigue, legal maneuvers, deception, desperation…and cold-blooded murder. The Salvus Treasure is a fabulous hoard of ancient Roman silver, worth a total of seventy million dollars. Uncovered decades ago under disputed circumstances, the treasure has been claimed by various parties, some of whom will stop at nothing to secure full ownership of its riches. People have died―and killed―to possess all fourteen pieces of silver. The legal battle over who truly owns the treasure finally leads to the New York County Courthouse in Lower Manhattan. But as teams of high-priced lawyers wrangle over provenance and witnesses, a shocking act disrupts the trial…and a crucial piece of evidence goes missing. The missing piece is a silver urn worth at least five million dollars. Now the race is on to discover what became of the urn…before the Salvus Treasure claims more lives.
- GenresFiction
352 pages, Hardcover
First published April 14, 2015
5 people are currently reading
616 people want to read
About the author
Kevin Egan
6 books32 followers Kevin Egan is the author of eight novels and more than 40 short stories.
His first novel, The Perseus Breed, combined a science fiction story-line with strong mystery genre elements. In the book, Borley Share’s obsessive quest to understand the sudden disappearance of his first serious girlfriend uncovers the existence of an alien race using the Earth as a nursery to raise its young.
Writing as Conor Daly, he published a three-book mystery series featuring Kieran Lenahan, who quit the practice of law to become a golf pro. Bouncing between the professional tour and a sedate country club, Kieran cannot shake the problems that bedeviled his legal career.
In Local Knowledge, a dead client’s testamentary request that Kieran auction a set of rare German golf clubs enmeshes him in a murderous conspiracy with roots in World War II.
In Buried Lies, Kieran is falsely accused of torching his own pro shop on the same day that his long-time caddie falls in front of a train. Only Kieran believes that the two events are connected.
In Outside Agency, Kieran wakes up in a strange apartment next to a woman who happens to be dead. He has no memory of who she is or how he got there, but needs to find out fast to save his own neck.
Writing as K.J. Egan, he published Where It Lies, which features Jenny Chase, a single mom and country club pro. This book opens with the apparent suicide of a greenskeeper, who is survived by his wife and autistic teenage son. When the greenskeeper’s life insurer disclaims its million dollar policy based on a suicide clause, Jenny sets out to prove that the death was murder. Along the way, she uncovers even more horrible secrets.
Writing as Kevin Egan, he wrote three legal thrillers primarily set in the New York County Courthouse in lower Manhattan, where he worked for 30 years.
Midnight, a Kirkus Best Book of 2013, is a noir-ish thriller based on a simple premise: when a judge dies, his staff keep their jobs until the end of that calendar year. So when a judge quietly expires in his chambers on the morning of New Year’s Eve, his clerk and secretary face unemployment by close of business. Neither can afford to be out of a job, so they concoct a deceptively simple plan – smuggle the judge’s body out of the courthouse to make it look like he died at home and after the critical hour of midnight. The plan seems to work – until it doesn’t.
In The Missing Piece, the disputed ownership of a fabulous hoard of ancient Roman silver ends up as the subject of a trial in the New York County Courthouse . The ill-fated first trial ends with a courtroom invasion, the shooting of a court officer, and the theft of an urn worth $5 million. Three years later, the parties re-assemble for the re-trial. The judge is secretly pregnant but determined to handle the trial before moving on to the next phase of her life. The paralyzed officer, convinced that the missing piece never left the courthouse, directs a fellow officer on a literal treasure hunt though the iconic building. Meanwhile, the gunmen are circling with an even more daring plan to disrupt the trial.
In A Shattered Circle, a judge is suffering from dementia, and his devoted wife has successfully kept his condition a secret while scrambling to find a treatment that will arrest his steady decline. Then the bad stuff happens. A persistent private investigator needs to question the judge about the murder of a country lawyer – a crime that has no apparent connection to the judge. An angry litigant has filed a judicial complaint, starting a process that could reveal the judge’s dementia. And a court officer who is trying to exonerate a dying friend of an ancient murder has stumbled across a secret the judge’s wife buried long ago..
Kevin’s short fiction has appeared repeatedly in the following mystery magazines: Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Mystery Tribune, and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. His mainstream stories have app
His first novel, The Perseus Breed, combined a science fiction story-line with strong mystery genre elements. In the book, Borley Share’s obsessive quest to understand the sudden disappearance of his first serious girlfriend uncovers the existence of an alien race using the Earth as a nursery to raise its young.
Writing as Conor Daly, he published a three-book mystery series featuring Kieran Lenahan, who quit the practice of law to become a golf pro. Bouncing between the professional tour and a sedate country club, Kieran cannot shake the problems that bedeviled his legal career.
In Local Knowledge, a dead client’s testamentary request that Kieran auction a set of rare German golf clubs enmeshes him in a murderous conspiracy with roots in World War II.
In Buried Lies, Kieran is falsely accused of torching his own pro shop on the same day that his long-time caddie falls in front of a train. Only Kieran believes that the two events are connected.
In Outside Agency, Kieran wakes up in a strange apartment next to a woman who happens to be dead. He has no memory of who she is or how he got there, but needs to find out fast to save his own neck.
Writing as K.J. Egan, he published Where It Lies, which features Jenny Chase, a single mom and country club pro. This book opens with the apparent suicide of a greenskeeper, who is survived by his wife and autistic teenage son. When the greenskeeper’s life insurer disclaims its million dollar policy based on a suicide clause, Jenny sets out to prove that the death was murder. Along the way, she uncovers even more horrible secrets.
Writing as Kevin Egan, he wrote three legal thrillers primarily set in the New York County Courthouse in lower Manhattan, where he worked for 30 years.
Midnight, a Kirkus Best Book of 2013, is a noir-ish thriller based on a simple premise: when a judge dies, his staff keep their jobs until the end of that calendar year. So when a judge quietly expires in his chambers on the morning of New Year’s Eve, his clerk and secretary face unemployment by close of business. Neither can afford to be out of a job, so they concoct a deceptively simple plan – smuggle the judge’s body out of the courthouse to make it look like he died at home and after the critical hour of midnight. The plan seems to work – until it doesn’t.
In The Missing Piece, the disputed ownership of a fabulous hoard of ancient Roman silver ends up as the subject of a trial in the New York County Courthouse . The ill-fated first trial ends with a courtroom invasion, the shooting of a court officer, and the theft of an urn worth $5 million. Three years later, the parties re-assemble for the re-trial. The judge is secretly pregnant but determined to handle the trial before moving on to the next phase of her life. The paralyzed officer, convinced that the missing piece never left the courthouse, directs a fellow officer on a literal treasure hunt though the iconic building. Meanwhile, the gunmen are circling with an even more daring plan to disrupt the trial.
In A Shattered Circle, a judge is suffering from dementia, and his devoted wife has successfully kept his condition a secret while scrambling to find a treatment that will arrest his steady decline. Then the bad stuff happens. A persistent private investigator needs to question the judge about the murder of a country lawyer – a crime that has no apparent connection to the judge. An angry litigant has filed a judicial complaint, starting a process that could reveal the judge’s dementia. And a court officer who is trying to exonerate a dying friend of an ancient murder has stumbled across a secret the judge’s wife buried long ago..
Kevin’s short fiction has appeared repeatedly in the following mystery magazines: Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Mystery Tribune, and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. His mainstream stories have app
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 8, 2015
Kevin Egan's latest novel is a legal thriller that opens with a daring courtroom heist of an ancient Roman urn, just as the trial that will determine the ownership of the piece is about to begin. It is one of fourteen pieces of a hoard discovered in a field in Hungary, or was it Croatia?
Three years later, Linda Conover, a law clerk at the time of the heist who was present in the courtroom at the time, is now a judge in New York City. Conover has been chosen to preside over the new trial to determine ownership. Author Egan does a masterful job depicting the court system, from the judge down to the custodians, and how each plays a crucial part in the story. As the new trial looms closer, several people who were present in the courthouse at the time the "missing piece" was stolen are now searching for the treasure.
At the same time, Judge Conover has her own personal problems to deal with, including a marriage to a high-powered lawyer that is less than what it should be. Even as she deals with this stress, she finds out that she is pregnant. As she gears up for the new trial, she privately decides that this will be her last.
Author Egan's knowledge of the New York State court system makes this novel jam-packed with absorbing details, not only of the system, but the New York County Courthouse building in Lower Manhattan itself. The characters all come alive as they move through their days, professionally and personally, for better or worse, or somewhere in between. The Missing Piece is a tense thriller that may keep you up until the wee hours.
(As published in Suspense Magazine)
November 11, 2014
Thank you to the author Kevin Egan for an Advance Uncorrected Proof.
I read this in one day, in one sitting. The characters keep you engaged and the unique mixture of law an ancient treasure is a refreshing new angle on the treasure genre. Full of murder a mayhem for the mystery buffs.
Off topic, but I'm really curious what the cover will look like.
I read this in one day, in one sitting. The characters keep you engaged and the unique mixture of law an ancient treasure is a refreshing new angle on the treasure genre. Full of murder a mayhem for the mystery buffs.
Off topic, but I'm really curious what the cover will look like.
September 9, 2018
The setting's great -- Law & Order country -- the courts downtown NYC. The court employees are distinctly drawn and allowed to be intelligent, even if they are not lawyers. The lawyers are allowed an intelligence, too, according to their worth. This story, about an ancient artifact claimed by several countries, was twisty and complex. I read the book in a day or two (in August). I recommend.
September 26, 2015
I received this book for free via Goodreads First Reads.
I actually received a pre-release advanced copy but it somehow managed to slip down my 'to-read' piles.
The book does not fit into any genre easily. It has elements of courtroom drama, crime, mystery, police story and many other genres contained in the pages. They all come together to an ending which I felt does leave gaps or 'missing pieces'. I enjoyed the book as a whole and it was a thrilling read at times.
The blurb for the book is true but does not indicate how the book progresses. I will leave it up to other reviewers and readers to find that out. A solid 4 stars and a recommendation to readers of crime novels, thrillers and courtroom dramas.
I actually received a pre-release advanced copy but it somehow managed to slip down my 'to-read' piles.
The book does not fit into any genre easily. It has elements of courtroom drama, crime, mystery, police story and many other genres contained in the pages. They all come together to an ending which I felt does leave gaps or 'missing pieces'. I enjoyed the book as a whole and it was a thrilling read at times.
The blurb for the book is true but does not indicate how the book progresses. I will leave it up to other reviewers and readers to find that out. A solid 4 stars and a recommendation to readers of crime novels, thrillers and courtroom dramas.
May 20, 2015
A courtroom drama interweaves with the story of the lives of a variety of individuals which builds slowly until it reaches a shuddering climax. A little slow in the beginning but well worth your time
August 9, 2015
won this book in a goodreads giveaway.good book and well written. will be sure to look for more by kevin egan
August 29, 2015
Interesting characters and plot twists. Love the NYC setting.
August 11, 2015
The Salvus Treasure is a Roman collection of priceless silver objects. When it is unearthed decades before, the ownership of the treasure becomes a legal matter with several countries and private individuals all claiming ownership. With millions at stake violence follows. Judge Linda Conover is called upon to decide the proper claimant after the first trial ends in loss of a piece of treasure. The characters are mainly the courthouse staff, both those in the public eye and the behind the scenes menials.
Many twists and turns are finally resolved and the treasure is returned to the rightful owner.
Many twists and turns are finally resolved and the treasure is returned to the rightful owner.
April 30, 2017
Didn't finish got halfway thru. Got bored. No continuity.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews