“Murder. Spies. Assassins. Follow the tale of mitigation specialist Liv as she tries to get a young man off of death row and finds trouble. I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. It was one of the most thrilling mystery books I have read in a while, and Jon Hebert does an excellent job of weaving the story together from a multitude of perspectives. Each character is very well formed and the book kept my attention the entire time. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a really well-written spy thriller. Only pick it up if you have plenty of time though—once I started reading this book I did not want to put it down!”
~ Kelsey Cashman, Reedsy Discovery
The Gemstone Peridot
by Jon Hébert
Liv Baird faces the one legal challenge she can’t control—a Russian assassin at the heart of her final death row case in this ‘ripped from the headlines’ international thriller.
Liv advocates for countless death row cases, but none as dangerous as Ned Baker’s. She thought the case would be cut and dry, then she uncovers evidence he may have been framed. When her investigation unearths a covert operative named Amethyst, it threatens to expose the high-ranking intelligence officer who’ll do anything to keep his agent’s whereabouts a secret—including putting her life at risk.
With a crooked cop army on her tail, Liv must navigate the rural town of Atwar, Alabama, to trap Amethyst and extract the truth: did he frame Ned? And if not, who did? But Amethyst’s motives aren’t easily discerned; he may be the real killer; he may be her savior; and she may have to partner with him to prove her client’s innocence.
As she closes in on the shocking truth, Moscow dispatches an assassin to kill Amethyst, putting Liv in the way of his dragon-like blade. With the pressure mounting, the scene is set for a fiery, bloody showdown. Gripping and darkly fun, The Gemstone Peridot’s slow-burning plot and action-filled twists push an expansive cast of characters toward a blistering, unforgettable finale.
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When writing from the third-person perspective, you might tend to bloat your sentences with filter words such as see, think, wondered, and heard. These filter words put a subconscious distance between the reader and your work. Remove them, and the reader experiences the story from inside your character’s head, instead of having an external narrator report it to them.
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