While attending his father’s funeral, Alex Miller met his father’s best friend, Michael Ohlig, for the first time. The two men had been friends earlier in their life and then again some thirty years later, but Alex had never met him. Little did Alex know then what a major role Ohlig would play in his future.

Alex was a young defense attorney with one of the most powerful law firms in New York City when he was hired by Ohlig shortly after his father’s death, to represent Ohlig against accusations that he had bilked investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars.

In the meantime, although Alex has a wife and young daughter, he begins an unexpected relationship with a young woman attached to the case as his marriage begins to flounder. As he dives into preparation for the case with his new love interest by his side, and strives to juggle his home and work life, Alex starts to feel the tension mount.

On Thanksgiving Day, he receives an unexpected phone call that his mother has died as a result of drowning in the ocean. Soon after, Alex learns of his mother’s long-time affair with Michael Ohlig. Although Alex knows defending Ohlig could be seen as a conflict of interest, he goes ahead with the trial.

As Ohlig’s trial comes to a shocking conclusion and yet another trial begins, Alex faces difficult challenges in both his personal and professional life. He finds that the commitment to honesty and truth is more difficult than he expected, and his decisions and choices take him on a path that changes the course of his life forever.

A Conflict of Interest is the debut novel by Adam Mitzner, an attorney living in New York. The story begins innocently enough, but throughout the ensuing chapters it begins to pick up speed as well as intensity. The author deliberately leads the reader along the same path that Alex travels in the course of his pursuit of justice giving the reader a sense of intimacy into the life of Alex and his family so that whenever something happens, the reader feels much of the same emotion that Alex feels.

It is amazing to me that a newly published author can bring such gripping emotion and depth to each scene. He never veers off track but stays the course throughout giving readers of this legal thriller a ride they won’t soon forget. This is not a novel a reader can walk away from without thinking about what they just read.

Hopefully we will hear from Adam Mitzner again, very soon.

A special thank you goes to Simon and Schuster for providing a complimentary copy of this book for our review. A Conflict of Interest is available for purchase at Amazon.com.