For December, our book of the month is a powerful and original crime thriller, from an unmissable voice in the genre. Robyn Gigl’s latest addition to her Erin McCabe legal thriller series, Survivor’s Guilt, is both a brilliant sequel and stand-alone read. As an attorney and activist herself, Gigl has followed-up her award-winning series debut By Way of Sorrow, with an equally addictive story packed with high stakes action, courtroom dramatics and a lot of heart.
In case you’re unfamiliar with the Erin McCabe series so far, the story follows a young, determined attorney Erin McCabe as she fights for justice and uncovers shocking truths in the various legal battles she is faced with. Outside of the intense legal drama, Erin also experiences the ups and downs of being a young transgender woman in the 2000s, facing prejudice and transphobia in her personal and professional life.
In Survivor’s Guilt, Erin discovers a conspiratorial web between powerful men and women in New Jersey’s economic elites. The death of millionaire businessman Charles Parsons seems like a straightforward suicide. There’s no sign of forced entry or struggle in his lavish New Jersey mansion — just a single gunshot wound from his own weapon. But days later, a different story emerges. Computer techs pick up a voice recording that incriminates Parsons’s adoptive daughter, Ann, who duly confesses and pleads guilty.
After the case is brought to her attention by an unlikely source, Erin McCabe and her law partner, Duane Swisher, soon realise that pieces of Ann’s story don’t fit together. Ann clearly knows more than she’s willing to share, even if it means a life sentence. Who is she protecting, and why? As their investigation deepens, Erin and Swish find themselves caught in a web of human exploitation, unchecked greed, and murder — before learning the horrifying truth…
The series’ namesake, Erin McCabe, is naturally the heart and soul behind the story. Gigl has imbued her with so much authenticity and passion, that you end up desperately turning page after page just to see what Erin does next. If Gigl wrote a whole new book dedicated to just Erin’s backstory as a young up-and-coming lawyer, I would eat it up without a doubt. She is one of the most compelling crime fiction protagonists I’ve come across.
There is no doubt when reading this that Gigl is a talented attorney with a strong voice. Her courtroom scenes are especially satisfying to read, with great insights into legal intricacies and sharp dialogue. Not only that, but they also deal intelligently with complex themes around abuse, power, gender, public perception, and more. Throughout the book, we see characters face weighty moral conundrums, for example, questions around sacrificing personal risk for justice, the many ways the truth can get buried or silenced, and even around how we personally learn to put down our walls and trust those we love.
Survivor’s Guilt is published by Verve Books
9780857308450 | PB | £9.99 | 7th December 2023
‘I was mightily impressed with Robyn Gigl’s debut, By Way of Sorrow… but Survivor’s Guilt is even better. A ground-breaking series now stands to become a definitive one’
— New York Times (Best Crime Novels of the Year)
‘Stunning… Gigl delightfully flips the usual terms of the genre with a murder victim readers are quickly drawn to hate and a murderer whom they will be rooting for. Her takes on big questions of justice, revenge, and the nature of victimhood will resonate with many’
— Publishers Weekly
‘Gigl’s accomplishment here is to parse the serious flaws with the legal system… by way of subtle characterisation and seamless plotting. We get engrossing originality – and a brilliant point in a larger argument for the benefits of greater representation in our beloved genre’
— Lambda Literary