Book Review — The Murder of Sara Barton

“The Murder of Sara Barton” by Lance McMillian is a courtroom drama told from the perspective of a prosecutor who has a personal motive for wanting to see murderers get their due. Chance Meridian is still grieving the loss of his wife and son to a killer who has gotten away with the crime when he throws himself into the prosecution of Sara Barton’s killer.

Chance struggles with his own demons and makes his own personal mistakes along the way. Faith plays a huge role in Chance’s psyche, and McMillian does a great job of allowing Chance to struggle with his faith without sounding preachy. But will Chance’s sins derail the case? I’m not going to tell you because, well, spoilers.

There are, of course, twists, which I have to admit I guessed about 2/3 of the way through, but it might have been a lucky guess because I like trying to guess these things and remember, my day job is doing this kind of thing for a living. It didn’t ruin anything for me, because it wasn’t obvious and I wasn’t sure. That said, what makes this courtroom drama particularly good, in my estimation, is that it at no point made me want to throw the book across the room because the author had no idea how things actually happen inside a courtroom. McMillian himself is a law professor and his wife is a Georgia Supreme Court Justice, so he knows the law. That made it all hyper-realistic to me.

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It was a good, suspenseful, page turner, the kind that makes you stay up late reading. As my son would say, ten out of ten, would recommend.

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