Dervla McTiernan Follow

The character at the heart of Dervla McTiernan’s novel, The Murder Rule, is an unlikely person to weasel her way inside an Innocence Project case, but if you set that aside and go along for the ride, McTiernan has given us a devilishly clever story. Law student Hannah Rokeby attaches herself to a University of Virginia Innocence Project case that involves a death row defendant Rokeby has a history with. Hannah and her mother think he is guilty, and so Hannah has set out to ensure the man never again sees the outside of a prison. Things do not go as planned, however, and Hannah finds herself in murky waters. Danger abounds, people are hurt, and McTiernan plunges us into an exploration of the moral and legal ambiguities that come with death penalty cases. The Murder Rule is an enjoyable novel filled with enough twists and turns to keep readers guessing to the final pages.