Jackie’s Reading Corner

SYNOPSIS

When eminent psychiatrist Dr Liz Sullivan is found dead in her bed, suspicion falls on local gamer and YouTube celebrity Jaden ‘JD’ Dodds.

 

Did he target her because of her anti-gaming views and the work she undertook to expose the dangers of playing online games? And what was her connection with Valiant, an independent game manufacturer about to hit the big time, and its volatile boss? 

 

Judith Burton and Constance Lamb team up once more to defend JD when no one else is on his side.

 

But just because he makes a living killing people on screen doesn’t mean he’d do it in real life. Or does it?

MY REVIEW

Judith Burton and Constance Lamb are back in the fifth book in this brilliant legal series. I was lucky enough to be on the blog tour for the last book in the series The Rapunzel Act, I enjoyed that so much I purchased the first three books (haven’t had a chance to read them yet but will be soon). So when this blog tour came up I was happy to join.

I certainly wasn’t disappointed. Constance is at Hackney police station where she has been asked to represent a young 18 year old male accused of burglary. But when she gets to the station the charge is much worse. Jayden Dodd or ‘JD’ as his friends know him is accused of murder.

Initially the police had believed that Psychiatrist Elizabeth Sullivan had died of natural causes, but as they had looked closer they believed she had been murdered. The last person know to have been with Liz was JD. The police didn’t seem to look much further especially as JD’s DNA was all over her home, and the fact that they had also had sex that Friday evening.

JD is a You Tube gamer, him and his best friend Nathaniel do a live show regularly on You Tube, they have a huge following and make a living from it. They didn’t know that Liz was a psychiatrist or that she was working on getting legislation into gaming and addictive effects it can have on some, in some cases it can lead to death. Liz has a son Tom who is in boarding school.

Judith and Constance have their work cut out on this one, as they try to find out what they can about Liz Sullivan. The work she has been doing with Dr Williams, reading papers she has written all about the effects of online gaming.

This is a well researched interesting story, showing the impact some games can have on people’s lives, even the free games which so many people play and how the companies make their money, something I had never thought about before. I have played games online but I never pay for add ons etc. One of my 4 children used to play lots of online games with people he didn’t know. Luckily he never got addicted to the extent that it is mentioned in this story.

Not only is the story shown from the perspective of the gamer but also from a company who are trying to make the games, in this story one wants to make it into an Olympic Sport.

This is a fast paced well written story, with a few twists and turns that take you in different directions. The first half of the story is from when JD is arrested and Judith and Constance investigating. The second half is the trial as Constance is still trying to investigate anything new coming out.

If you haven’t read any of these books then not to worry, this can be read as a stand alone novel, I like how Greg is still chasing Judith which is the only part of the backstory that I really want to go back to the beginning for. I love how Judith and Constance work together, each seeming to know what the other is thinking. Judith at times seems to lack a little confidence in herself and feels more comfortable with Constance in the courtroom, as Judith feels that she can get feedback from Constance. If you like legal dramas then grab a copy of this one and if you enjoy it check back on the previous 4 books. This is a solid ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ read. I look forward to book 6.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

About the Author

Abi Silver is an author and lawyer who grew up in Leeds in a traditional Jewish family. Watching Granada TV’s ‘Crown Court’ in between lessons led her to study Law at Girton College, Cambridge. Abi then worked in London at international law firm, Allen & Overy and at RPC, before spending five years in Israel, where her husband, Daniel, was posted. During her time there, alongside raising her three young sons, Abi completed an MBA by distance learning, learned Hebrew and pottery on the wheel and began to write fiction, usually late at night. On returning to the UK, she went back to law before quitting a permanent position in 2015 when she decided to try her hand at writing again which led to publication of The Pinocchio Brief. Based in Radlett, Hertfordshire, Abi works part-time as a legal consultant and author.

 

The Midas Game, which can be read as a standalone, is the fifth book in the acclaimed Burton and Lamb series: The Pinocchio Brief (2017), The Aladdin Trial (2018), The Cinderella Plan (2019) andThe Rapunzel Act (2021). The former three were all Sunday Times Crime Club picks, and The Rapunzel Act was named a “gripping mystery” by The Times.

Background to The Midas Game (In Abi’s own words)

The inspiration for my stories generally comes from disparate sources; it was no different this time around. In the 1990s, the US Congress held a series of hearings on the impact of violence in video games, sparked off by a Florida gunman, who killed 17 people, admitting to playing Mortal Kombat.

In the summer of 2018, the World Health Organisation classified ‘gaming disorder’ as an illness. Whilst it was accepted that only a small proportion of people who game will develop gaming disorder, its symptoms were serious enough and the evidence from international, multi-disciplinary experts sufficiently persuasive for this important step to be taken.

That same summer, 78 million people around the world were playing Fortnite, an online, last-man-standing game, set in a post-apocalyptic world. It made its manufacturers $4 billion. Although the game was free to play and marked 12+, concerns were raised about bills being run up by children on in-app purchases, the potential to be approached by strangers via the chat function and its potentially addictive nature. My youngest son, then 14 years old, and all his friends, were playing Fortnite for hours at a time.

The Esports industry has been holding tournaments with large cash prizes for some years. It has also been lobbying for a place in the Olympic Games, primarily on the basis of keeping the Games relevant to the younger generation. Whilst it was recently confirmed that Esports will not be included in the 2024 Olympics, an Olympic Virtual Series event, the first tentative step towards its inclusion, is currently taking place in the run up to the rescheduled Tokyo Olympics.

These (and more) are the issues which Judith Burton and Constance Lamb grapple with, when they defend gamer JD Dodds, suspected of raping and murdering his neighbour, Dr Liz Sullivan.

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