The Innocence Game

The Innocence Game, by Michael Harvey, Alfred A Knopf 2013.  A new book from Chicago crime writer Michael Harvey, whose Michael Kelly series is an addictive trip into the backstreets of the Windy City, The Innocence Game starts in a classroom and moves quickly into the dangerous zone of long-dead victims, perpetrators, and cover-ups.  When three top journalism students find themselves drawn into their new assignment, pouring through boxes of dead cases, a single item captures their focus – the blood-stained shred of a murdered boy’s shirt – and they innocently become part of the game.  They may be brilliant and tough, but can they discover if a man was falsely accused?  And is there more danger waiting for them outside the classroom? Harvey moves this plot along and takes us into the dark underworld where guilt and innocence aren’t just debated in the courtroom – the losers lose big, and winners manage to simply survive. Grad students Ian Joyce, Sarah Gold and Jake Havens uncover more than a simple case of false imprisonment and murder as Chicago pulls them into danger and death beyond what their Pulitzer-prize winning professor warned them about. 

Michael Harvey fans will recognize the bars, streets and restaurants of Chicago, as well as Northwestern’s suburban campus.  Previous Harvey book characters Michael Kelly and Vince Rodriguez makes their appearance. 

Complex, twisting plot, loaded with well-staged surprises, great summer read.