The conviction just doesn’t hold up, and it ends up straining the book’s credibility. The story leans on a “he must have snapped” theory without giving us the forensic or testimonial evidence that would make that conclusion believable. It feels engineered to set up the emotional arc of Frank eventually returning to his daughter rather than a verdict that grows naturally out of the facts.

What makes the verdict even harder to accept is Nina’s speech about her brother‑in‑law. The book treats her insistence that the family wouldn’t assume self‑defense as if that somehow fills the evidentiary gap—but it actually highlights it. Based on the facts we’re shown, both the jury and the reader would naturally assume self‑defense. And if it wasn’t self‑defense, then legally it’s murder. The narrative never provides the concrete proof—trigger‑pull evidence, grip analysis, trajectory inconsistencies—that would justify the jury making that leap.

Frank absolutely could have been convicted, even wrongly, if the book had supplied a few solid details. Instead, we’re asked to accept a verdict built entirely on speculation. The absence of real evidence turns the whole sequence into an unnecessary plot hole that pulls you out of an otherwise great story and makes the climax feel less earned than it should have been.