Tenkill

Set in a 2020 Covid-free world in which the U.S. president is the Trump-like Hubert M. Davies, this intriguing legal thriller from Kirk (Method 15/33) stars politically progressive lawyer Greta Vinet Seville, a partner at Coarse & Cotton in Boston. When Davies’s William Barr–like attorney general, Raymond Honeywell, resigns in June of that year and joins Coarse & Cotton as a partner, Greta is appalled. Her personal distaste for her new colleague turns into something more serious when her work as the firm’s e-discovery counsel, which involves using technology to maximize searches through millions of documents for litigation, reveals something sinister. A chance find buttresses her suspicions that Honeywell participated in “an illegal campaign finance scheme related to private prisons” concentrated on the Texas border, where the Davis administration had caged border-crossing children seeking asylum. That discovery places her career, liberty, and life in jeopardy as she teams up with an eccentric group to hold Honeywell to account. The fast pacing and plot twists compensate for less-than-robust characterizations. Greta and crew are capable of sustaining a sequel. Agent: Kimberly Cameron, Kimberly Cameron & Assoc. (Jan.)