Verdict: A fast action packed thriller. A lawyer’s sense of morality is tested when he is chosen to represent a man he believes is innocent.

Author John J. Blenkush’s novel tells the story of Lang Lawton, an inexperienced lawyer working at his uncle’s less than stellar law firm. In college Lawton was an up and coming ambition student. He was offered a position at Dyson and Babcock, a prestigious firm that, no doubt, would have made him very wealthy. Instead he decides to work for the benefactor who paid his way through law school. Lawton’s life is fairly mundane, that is until he is offered the most high profile case of his career. He is chosen to represent Rue Theodore Day, a man accused of killing a police officer in cold blood.

Lawton is initially told to plea-bargain, but he isn’t completely convinced that Day is guilty. With a moral conscious weighing heavy on his shoulders, he embarks on a journey to uncover the truth about Day. Endless trails of lies, deceit and betrayal reveal themselves as his world begins to unravel. Lawton’s unhinged desire to know what really happened the day of the officer’s murder leads him into a dangerous world involving a candidate for governor and an infamous Mexican billionaire and his low men.

Reddition reads like a thriller, with more substance than you might expect from this genre. The novel has all the excitement, murders and occasional gunfights it’s readers anticipate. Still, there are some very interesting thematic undertones. At the heart of the story, is the question of how far a man, particularly a lawyer, will go to find the truth. To what extent should a sense of morality be chosen over ambition and personal safety?

Reviewed by Rebecca Nichloson for IndieReader