A Thin Difference

Although short, this book will totally occupy your time once you get through a few pages. At first it seems just like another legal story that we will..together...somehow solve. But...don't believe it....there's a BIG surprise waiting that will take your breath away. I want to read more of Frank Turner Hollon but now I will be leary of what he might throw at me before the story is over...

This is by far one of the best legal thrillers out today. Blows Grisham out of the water. Believe me, get this book and read it! Mr. Hollon's writing is clean, concise and to the bone. I never saw the ending coming until it hit me like a train. I hope that he continues to write legal thrillers like this. Excellent, Excellent, Excellent!

I really enjoyed the book, and appreciate the clear, concise writing.

Right at the start, Hollon throws a curve into his novel, one that weighs upon the reader's mind throughout the book, a damning presence that refuses to be dislodged. Is there a crime so heinous as to be unforgivable? Possibly.Jack Skinner is a middle-aged lawyer at the edge of financial dissolution. His life sliding into oblivion for years, he exists in an alcoholic haze, somehow enduring the misery of each day, at least until three o'clock. At exactly three in the afternoon, his extremely patient, unpaid secretary leaves for home and Jack removes the ubiquitous bottle from his desk drawer. So when Brad Craine saunters into the office, with a request for legal services and offering a $5,000 cash retainer, who can argue with Skinner's relieved acceptance? Craine merely requires the attorney to expunge his record, after which he intends to purchase a bar after qualifying for the liquor license. Should Skinner have been more circumspect? Craine did appear after three in the afternoon, the beginning of Jack's personal Happy Hour. And as Skinner himself wryly observes, "A man who keeps his eyes straight ahead has a hard time watching his back." More than willing to ignore the quagmire that his personal life has become, Jack spends most of his hours at the office, in the court room or at the local bar. Three times divorced, Skinner's oldest daughter despises him and the youngest one is emotionally damaged, seeking oblivion in drugs and men. Ever more an absentee father, Jack studiously avoids any responsibility for his children's problems.When Brad Craine is arrested for murder and needs his help, Skinner agrees to defend the affable young man, who insists that he is innocent. Skinner goes into overdrive, enlisting the aid of his younger daughter as assistant and using his considerable skills to build Craine's defense, especially since the prosecution's case is predominantly circumstantial. The perfect witness in his own defense, Craine's performance on the stand is brilliant. Skinner is hopeful that the verdict may be favorable, but it is a close call. At this point, the author tosses in yet another Hitchcockian twist, one that stuns even the self-deprecating Jack Skinner. Faced with an impossible conundrum, a man is called to account for a lifetime of deception, a very personal date with destiny. Hollon masterfully seduces the reader into the vortex of his dark and emotionally complex novel, always one step ahead, no holds barred, Luan Gaines/2003.

I have been enchanted by books, the evocative sound of pages turning, the mesmerizing way the eye moves down the page. A Thin Difference is just this kind of book, the sort of novel that walks with you down a long and unforeseen road, like a pathway into a new world.Alabama writer-lawyer Frank Turner Hollon, author of The Pains of April and The God File, has done it again. He's written something moving, something strong, something unforgettable. I have read his two recently published novels, and I will read whatever it is he publishes next. And the next book. And the next. Hollon hasn't missed William Faulkner's famous line: "Problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat."Hollon's characters, I believe, have pulses, pump blood through their arteries, and eat oatmeal for breakfast. Oatmeal and Early Times for breakfast. Meet Jack Skinner, middle-aged lawyer, alcoholic, father of a wayward daughter, a man askew from his senses at times, a man obsessed with saving another man from lethal injection. Meet Brad Caine, the accused, on trial for robbing and killing an old blueblood rich woman. Caine is said to have stolen seven figures worth of the lady's jewelry. This isn't his first brush with the law. There's more care for the human heart in conflict with itself right there in the pages of this novel than in most of the good books I've read over the years. Hollon's knowledge of the workings of the courtroom, the landscape and haunts of the Gulf Coast, and the terrain of the heart is worthy trade for the price of his book.This is a story, a mystery. Who killed Haddie Charles, the old lady? I won't tell you. Who will save an almost good man, Jack Skinner? I won't say. How will Jack's daughter make it in this world? It's not easy to tell. Are we the sole masters of our own fate? Never. Can we even know who we are?Read this book to find out. You'll care about these people. You will want to read more of Frank Turner Hollon. I certainly do.--- Reviewed by Dayne Sherman