#SheReviews The Murder Rule by Dervla McTiernan

August 16, 2022

Even in seemingly fiercely democratic and justice-driven societies and countries like Australia, America and the United Kingdom, the once sturdy balusters in the legal system of justice, responsibility and respectability are at-times flagrantly flimsy, jaded and misleading.

Such a timely notion is expertly, carefully and deftly explored in stellar Irish author (she now resides in Australia), Dervla McTiernan’s, latest masterfully written crime thriller, “The Murder Rule”.

The novel begins in August (the beginning of the academic year for American universities) in the town of Charlottesville in the state of Virginia in 2019. Our protagonist, Hannah Rokeby, is a third year law student from the University of Maine, who has transferred to the University of Virginia (or has she?) law faculty. 

In the hallowed inner chambers of the law school at the University of Virginia, academic staff, lawyers and law students work meticulously, methodically, tirelessly and pro-bono for the “Innocence Project”, a program that takes on the cases of those incarcerated, including those on death row, who declare themselves to be innocent; the prisoners frequently having exhausted all avenues for freedom before they approach the team at the Innocence Project.

Hannah is accepted by the head of the Innocence Project at the University, Professor Robert Parekh (an Associate Professor of Law at the University), under dubious circumstances. 

Hannah voices her firm belief (or is it?) to Parekh that she “believe(s) that the system is broken. Too many innocent people are going to prison and I think that may get worse, not better, given the political situation”.

Shockingly, it soon becomes apparent that Hannah’s motivations for working for the Innocence Project are worse than murky in intent and definitely not shrouded in the shining nobility and perhaps at-times naivety of the other workers embedded in the project. 

When Hannah by a random process of elimination (or is it?) finds herself working as part of the team on the Michael Dandridge case, she is in her element. Michael Dandridge was, eleven years ago, convicted of the rape and murder of Sarah Fitzhugh (a young mother living with a seven year old, Samuel, and a baby, Rosie, her husband Saul being away for work); a notably horrific event which occurred one night in 2007.

The two other students working feverishly and highly-focused on the case, apart from Hannah, are the feisty Camilla Martinez and the sensitive and caring Sean Warner. They are both affable and warm towards Hannah, and together these ambitiously driven students seem to be making giant inroads into Michael’s case. Parekh “had asked them for ways to attack the pillars of the prosecution’s case – the anonymous caller, the confession, and the eyewitness lineup”. 

Is Michael Dandridge a man betrayed by a corrupt legal system, or is he a cunning liar and manipulator? What is Hannah’s connection to Michael? Will Hannah succeed in her secretive ploy to derail Michael’s appeal, reasons for which become blaringly apparent (or are they?) as we progress in the novel. 

 Why has Hannah lied to Parekh, Camilla and Sean, and said that she transferred to the University of Virginia to be close to her mother who is receiving cancer treatment at the local hospital? Will justice be done in the Sarah Fitzhugh case? Will a guilty man walk free, or an innocent man get the death penalty?

The twists and turns in this thriller are expertly interwoven in the detailed fabric of this beautifully constructed story. Dervla writes with exemplary intelligence, insight and wisdom. I really can not fault this book; it captured my attention from the get-go, forcefully took hold of me, and didn’t release me until I’d read the last word. It is a book that is certainly relevant for the times we find ourselves in, not only in America, but Australia and worldwide.

I highly recommend “The Murder Rule” for those wanting to be taken on a wild and shocking, yet informative, educational and thought-provoking ride. I loved this book and I can’t wait to see what Dervla writes next.

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