More Likely Than Not is a medical thriller built around the death of infant Gabriel Savard and the machinery that forms around that death almost immediately. J.P. Brutus moves between grief, police pressure, forensic uncertainty, prison, courtrooms, and institutional self-protection, giving the book the feel of a wrongful conviction story told from inside the gears. Mario Savard’s tragedy begins as a family nightmare, but it quickly becomes a case shaped by assumptions, professional pride, and the dangerous comfort of a story that seems to fit.

The strongest thread is the way the novel treats forensic certainty as something human, not mechanical. Dr. Lemaire is convincing because he’s not written as a cartoon villain. He’s a skilled, wounded man whose instincts and past trauma make him vulnerable to the very bias he thinks he’s resisting. His line, “My gut doesn’t write reports,” lands well because the whole book keeps testing that claim. Detective Duhamel, meanwhile, brings pressure from another direction, turning background, class, criminal history, and family associations into a narrative that’s hard for Mario to escape once it takes hold.

Amélie’s role gives the story its second engine. Her AI-assisted review of old forensic cases could’ve felt like a gimmick, but the book uses it more as a mirror than a magic solution. The software flags patterns, but Amélie still has to read, question, risk her career, face colleagues, and decide what truth costs when the people around her would rather keep things quiet. Her relationship with Mathieu adds warmth without pulling the novel away from its central concern, and their scenes give the story some needed air between the heavier chapters.

The courtroom and late-book sections are especially effective because the resolution doesn’t pretend that vacating a conviction repairs a life. When the judge says, “The conviction is hereby vacated,” it’s a huge moment, but Brutus keeps his eye on the damage that remains: Mario’s lost years, Sylvie’s guilt, Jacob’s fractured childhood, Amélie’s professional isolation, and Lemaire’s collapse under the weight of being wrong. That makes the ending feel honest. It offers movement, not a neat reset.

More Likely Than Not is a thoughtful, fast-moving thriller about medicine, law, AI, and the emotional cost of doubt arriving too late. It’s grounded in forensic detail, but its real subject is responsibility: who carries it, who avoids it, and who pays when a system mistakes confidence for truth. Brutus has written a tense and humane novel that understands how a case file can become a life, and how hard it is to reopen both.

Pages: 416 | ASIN: B0H3M69YN2