A New Addition to the Eddie Flynn Series
Witness 8
Eddie Flynn
Murder Thrillers, Psychological Thrillers, Suspense Thrillers
Atria Books
March 25, 2025
Ebook, Audiobook, Hardcover, Paperback
416
This riveting psychological thriller from master of twists Steve Cavanagh, author of the “unguessable and unputdownable” (Alex Michaelides, #1 New York Times bestselling author) Kill For Me, Kill for You, asks: What if the witness was more twisted than the killer?
Something is wrong with Ruby Johnson.
A former resident of the ultra-elite Manhattan upper class, Ruby now works as a maid in the type of houses she used to live in. Unassuming, she sees everyone’s dirty secrets from the inside of their beautiful, renovated brownstones. But when Ruby witnesses a murder, she has wicked plans in mind that don’t involve telling the authorities the truth.
Eddie Flynn, streetwise ex con-artist-turned-defense attorney, is the only lawyer in New York City willing to take on hopeless cases. And none is more hopeless than John Jackson’s—the gun that killed his neighbor found, with Jackson’s DNA, in his own home. Flynn and his unconventional team will need to use every trick they know to keep an innocent man from being locked up. But to save his client’s life, Eddie must first protect his own, as the scariest organized criminals in the city are out for his head.
Perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell and Megan Miranda, Witness 8 is a fresh knockout page-turner from an author who is “the real deal” (Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author).
Witness 8 by Steve Cavanagh is the eighth book in the Eddie Flynn series about an ex-con-turned-lawyer in New York City.
I wish I was better acquainted with this series before picking up this book. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I were an Eddie Flynn fan.
The premise of this story sounded great: the only witness of a murder in a wealthy neighborhood is a young woman who is a villain in her own way. “Something is wrong with Ruby Johnson” and “What if the witness was more twisted than the killer?” were both taglines that heightened my anticipation for a twisty psychological thriller.
Despite the title being about a witness in a murder trial, I’d say only about half of the book is about this plotline and a third of the book actually delves into Ruby as a character (19 out of 70 chapters are from her point of view and she doesn’t even cross paths with Eddie and his team until at least 40% of the way into the book). This is primarily a novel about Eddie Flynn and the cast of characters that have been introduced throughout his series. The chapters jump across multiple points of view with Eddie as the sole first-person POV. There is a lot to follow in this story above and beyond the case at hand: corrupt cops, city-level politics, assassination attempts, and child trafficking, to name a few. It was too much, in my opinion. It strained my focus of attention.
Unfortunately, I skipped a good deal of this book to hear more from and about Ruby. Take, for example, this incredibly creepy description:
“Silent. Invisible. But that was also her power. She was a poisonous spider, lurking in the dark corners of every home on the street. …
So many spider threads she had yet to lay out. Some she could now begin to gather.
One thing was for sure: Ruby’s game was just beginning.
And she had flies to catch.”
Amazing, right?! Who wouldn’t want to know more about this spider and her web?
However, this is a story largely about courtroom drama, twisted cops and district attorneys in NYC, con-men and hitmen, and the uber-wealthy behaving badly. If that’s the vibe you’re going for, you’ll like this book. It just didn’t hit home for me as a psychologically thrilling page-turner. I saw the interwoven narratives as interrupting each other rather than building to a strong general plotline.
Celeste is a woman who is unwavering about certain things in life; three of those being books, cats, and cold brew coffee. If she can enjoy all three at the same time, it’s going to be a good day. Her favorite genres are fantasy or sci-fi romance, historical romance, and historical fiction but every few books she likes to mix it up with contemporary fiction, a good psychological thriller, or an inspiring memoir. She has a busy schedule working full-time for an online university but she makes sure to unwind each day with stories, either by reading to her elementary school-aged daughter or tucking herself in bed with her Kindle or the latest book she picked up at a local book store.
