Book Review: The Truth About the Devlins by Lisa Scottoline

Lisa Scottoline’s latest novel is an absolutely gripping page-turner, equal parts legal thriller and domestic drama as a family of lawyers strives to hold it together in the face of lies and violence.

TJ Devlin has always been the screw-up of his high-achieving family. While his parents and siblings worked hard to establish the family law firm, he partied even harder and landed himself in jail. With a criminal conviction and no college degree, he’s since sobered up and become the law firm’s in-house investigator, a position he’s been told in no uncertain terms is mostly decorative and entirely dependent on his good behavior. 

So he’s taken aback when his seemingly perfect older brother comes to him with a confession one night:

“What?” My mouth dropped open. “Did you just say you killed somebody?”

 

“Yes.” My brother nodded, jittery. His blue eyes looked unfocused, which never happened. Lasers have nothing on John Devlin.

 

“That can’t be. Not you. You’re, like, the best–”

 

“I did it,” John said, panicky. “I killed a man. TJ, what should I do?”

 

“How do I know? You’re the lawyer.” I didn’t get it. John and everyone else in my family were lawyers in our family firm, Devlin & Devlin. I’m a convicted criminal. On second thought, maybe I would’ve asked me, too.

According to John, the killing in question was entirely accidental. While going over the paperwork for the upcoming acquisition of Runstan Electronics, one of the Devlins’ clients, John had uncovered significant financial discrepancies. He’d confronted Runstan’s accountant, who’d threatened him with a gun. In the ensuing scuffle, John believed he’d killed the guy. Panicking, he left the scene and went to get help, in the form of his ex-con younger brother.

TJ and John immediately go to the quarry where the altercation had taken place. To their surprise, the body is no longer where John left it, though there is certainly enough blood to corroborate his version of events. John is relieved: surely this means that the accountant was merely knocked unconscious, but eventually recovered and walked away. TJ, however, is a far better investigator than his family gives him credit for, quickly sussing out alternate explanations and, perhaps more importantly, precautions as to what John should do next. At first, John thinks TJ is just being overly cautious, if not outright paranoid, until TJ’s predictions as to accomplices and shadows start coming true.

As it becomes more and more clear that someone is targeting John, TJ finds himself balancing on the fine line between protecting his family – sometimes from themselves – and continuing to take their abuse as the family scapegoat. Perhaps the only member of his family who doesn’t treat him like a failure is his sister Gabby, who also prioritizes her pro bono work instead of focusing on raking in the wealth the way that their parents and brother do. But as all of the Devlins get swept up in the net of a terrible criminal conspiracy, the family will have to pull together and overcome their own deep-seated prejudices in order to survive.

In addition to being an absorbing legal thriller, The Truth About The Devlins is an excellent look at dysfunctional family dynamics, and what it takes to overcome them in order to heal. It also shines a spotlight on a little known but horrifying facet of American history, when prison inmates were unethically tested on by pharmaceuticals and cosmetics industries in the mid-20th century. Gabby is filing a complaint for several of the survivors, and TJ is helping by conducting interviews, as here where he asks the ailing Joe Ferguson:

“Did they explain what product they were testing?”

 

“No.”

 

“And you were in Holmesburg in 1966, for only one year?”

 

“Yeah, I was there before my trial. They charged me with aggravated assault, but I didn’t do it and I couldn’t make bail. That was the reason I did the test, to make bail. The judge set five grand, so I needed five hundred bucks. I couldn’t get it.”

 

My God. “So you were only there awaiting trial? You were innocent?”

 

“Yes.” Joe blinked matter-of-factly. “They picked up the wrong guy. I tried to tell them, but they didn’t believe me.”

Poignant and smart, this novel deals sensitively with both legal and family history, as well as with what it means to take sobriety seriously. Wry, reflective TJ is so easy to root for as he confronts hard truths about both himself and his family. With plenty of humor and a touch of romance to perfectly counterbalance the dramatic tension, this book had me hooked until the very last page. It is, perhaps surprisingly, my first novel by Lisa Scottoline, but it definitely won’t be my last.