Eddie Flynn is an ex con man and apparently an ex lawyer as well. He’s taken by a Russian man named Arturas, who works for Olek Volchek, head of the Russian mafia in NYC. He tells Eddie that he will defend Volchek in court or they will kill his 10 year old daughter Amy. Somehow they were able to take her from school pretending Eddie had an emergency. Um, where is this school and how is this even possible?? Eddie really doesn’t have a choice but to defend Volchek, even though he barely practices anymore. But to add insult to injury, they show him his ex law partners head in a gym bag. Yeah I could’ve done without that visual.

Volchek is on trial because he ordered a hit on Mario Geraldo. The hitman, Little Benny, was caught in the act and ratted out Volchek. But he only spilled the beans about this one murder and not about the whole Russian mafia operation – drugs, more murder, trafficking, etc. So that’s odd.

Arturas and Volchek put a jacket on Eddie which has a bomb sewed into it. Arturas holds the detonator. He says since Little Benny has been so heavily protected by the FBI, they can’t get to him. But once he’s on the stand in the courtroom they plan to blow him up by getting the bomb under the witness stand. Eddie is suppose to take the fall for the bomb and obviously will end up in prison. But Amy will live, theoretically.

Now of course Eddie doesn’t want to have to kill Little Benny so he has to figure out a way to double cross the Russian mafia and get his daughter out alive.

A lot of holes here – no way anyone gets into the courthouse with a bomb casually sewn into their jacket. People are just giving Eddie passcodes for apartments and crazy things like that. A lot of Mission Impossible-esque stunts which just didn’t seem possible. I did love it although it felt a bit long. Eddie reminded me so much of Harlan Coben’s Myron Bolitar. So quick witted and funny. I can’t wait to read the second in the series.

4.5/5

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