Review: Easy Promises by Abby Reilly

A twisting police procedural that pits two detectives against a group of smooth-talking Philadelphia lawyers, Abby Reilly’s Easy Promises is also a feisty interfamily drama that calls into question the nickname “City of Brotherly Love.”

When criminal defense attorney Sean Murphy is found tied up with his throat slit on his yacht the Lucky Lady, it’s not difficult to find a suspect: frankly, it’s harder to rule anyone out. Enter seasoned detective Joe Watson and his younger counterpart Patricia Malone – the Philly cops tasked with narrowing down a long list of potential perpetrators, including the many less-than-savory clients that Sean had defended over the years.

More likely suspects, however, are Sean’s co-workers, many of whom are family and close friends. There’s Sean’s brother and co-partner at the firm; his wife and daughter, who are very fond of spending the Murphy’s money on fancy designer clothes. There’s also Sean’s dour, ill-tempered daughter, who feels like she’s not given enough credit as a junior lawyer. Then there are the Flannigans: third partner Patrick, who’s been worried about Sean’s criminal clients, and his wife and three children – one another junior lawyer, one a cop.

Most compelling may be Darcy, who is one of the most vividly drawn characters in the book. Instead of being involved in the family legal business, Darcy runs Dylan’s, a popular Irish pub and prominent setting of the novel, where all the lawyers hang out for long lunches and nights of drunken celebration and debauchery. Darcy and Sean have a complicated and secretive history, involving the funding of her restaurant, which the cops will have to tease out. Finally, there is Darcy’s love interest, Andrew “Drew” Sullivan, another defense attorney at the firm with a mysterious past and more than enough reasons to want Sean dead. Darcy and Drew are just finally starting to kindle their romance when murder puts everything on hold.

While Reilly asks readers to keep track of a lot of characters and entangled relationships in this first title in the anticipated Promises series, the payoff is constant taut scenes of police interrogation, expertly building to an intense, frenetic final scene where all is revealed and deep secrets come to light. The novel also smartly delves into the difficult and strained relationships between criminal defense attorneys, who want to keep their clients out of jail, and the police, who want to see criminals behind bars.

While some of the dialogue is awkward and unrealistic, Reilly does have a knack for a particular kind of teasing banter between characters with shared histories, whether those are co-workers, siblings, or lovers. These moments jump off the page in a cinematic way – the kind of read where you forget you’re reading. Additionally, Reilly has a real eye for detail and knows the exact descriptor that will stick with audiences long after finishing the book (of Patricia Malone: “Never would she get used to the smell of flesh lacking a soul”). Reilly’s writing gives the story momentum itself as one waits for the next intriguing twist of phrase.

All told, Easy Promises is a clever and fascinating insider’s view of the daily lives of lawyers, with some literal backstabbing to up the ante, for a deftly written thriller that is entertaining from the start.