Andy Barber is an assistant district attorney in Massachusetts. He is respected in the community and is often pulled in when there is a local homicide. However, when a local teenage boy is found murdered in a nearby park and Andy's 14-year-old son Jacob becomes the prime suspect, Andy's perspective must change, and suddenly he finds himself on the defensive side of the courtroom. When Andy's own family history is discovered and released to the public, revealing that his father is in prison for murder, the question of genetics and a possible inherited violent gene comes to light. As doubts to Jacob's innocence surface, Andy is determined to defend Jacob at all costs.

I don't remember hearing a lot of hype about this book when it came out, but I must've read something that influenced my decision to add it to my wishlist way back when, and it's been sitting on my pile for quite some time. Lately I've been consciously reading a lot of books that have had or will have screen adaptations made of them, and though I'm a little late to the party with watching the AppleTV miniseries (which I will begin shortly after writing this review), I figure better late than never. Going in, I knew that one of the big draws of this novel was a plot twist. I'm always up for a good one of those, so I was eager to see if I could figure it out. And I thought I had done so, but I was fooled. This one came wham! bang! right at the end. As far as plot twists it wasn't the best I've read, but it wasn't at all what I expected either, so that made it good. ( )

Defeating Jacob is a magnificent read and an exceptional limited series on Apple Plus. The similar plot to The Bad Seed makes for compelling reading and viewing. Fourteen year-old Jacob has been accused of murder. The story revolves around whether Jacob inherited an “evil gene” and how the accusation and trial impacts his parents. This is a page turner and a binge worthy streaming event ( )

Very twisted and mind bending. One of the best court room brawl books out there !! ( )

Struggled with the whole premise that an experienced ADA would be so blinkered about his own son's possible involvement - especially when the mother realised it halfway through the book. Ended up just skim reading the last half. ( )

Cross Jodi Picoult and John Grisham and you'll have an idea why William Landay's book is so hot. A lot of people LOVED this book. Unfortunately, I wasn't one of them.

The story is a legal thriller about a 14 year old son of an assistant DA who is accused of murder. The Jodi Picoultish part is that the child is descended from a long line of murderers that ends with the ADA. It raises the question of whether criminality is caused by nature or nuture and whether such knowledge should be considered in a criminal case.

The legal thriller part has an interesting plot twist, and I think that's the reason the book has gotten the hype that it has. I loved the twist, but it just made me realize how much better this book could have been. To me, the book had an outstanding plot concept, but it just wasn't executed all that well. I thought the characters were not well drawn, so I never really cared what happened to them. The pacing was off -- long drawn out and unnecessary court scenes followed by a super rushed ending that wasn't fleshed out and was rather just "told" to the reader. For me, 5 star plot idea and a 2 star execution = 3 stars. I thought the ending/twist could have been truly spectacular with a better treatment. ( )