There's a mysterious woman who speaks broken English sitting in Carlotta's office with a newspaper clipping about a mutilated corpse. Suddenly Carlotta is plunged into the desperate world of illegal aliens, the cold-hearted immigration agents who hunt them down, and the deadly "coyotes" who bring the innocents across the border.
The brilliant Bailey hack recalls some of his most extraordinary cases, including several deliciously funny courtroom spars with his arch-foe, the Mad Bull (aka Judge Roger Bullingham).
It is May 1963, in Birmingham, Alabama. As Martin Luther King, Jr.'s civil rights demonstrations begin to fill the streets, prejudices awaken and tempers flare. Amid the violence and confusion, a deaf black girl is found raped and murdered. Veteran homicide detective Ben Wellman pursues the murderer through the throngs of protesters, the pool halls of the black district of Bearmatch, the white mansions of Mountain Brook, and finally, even in his own department. As he did in Sacrificial Ground, Cook has created a novel of uncommon force and resonance.
The photograph-of a raisin-faced baby wearing something pastel-arrives in a blue envelope. There's no identification or return address, just an unfamiliar postmark. But something in the baby's face makes Carlotta keep the snapshot. Three weeks later, she finds out why.
The day after a Gothic door is returned to its original place in the Mottisham village church, two men are found dead. The Welsh villagers, closed and suspicious of outsiders, believe their deaths were not accidental, but part of an ancient legend that told of an unrepentant monk who tried to enter to the church by grasping the door's iron knocker.
Mary Carelli, one of the most powerful women in TV journalism, is charged with the murder of Mark Ransom, America's most eminent novelist. Her attorney, Christopher Paget, sets out to shock the courtroom with revelations about Ransom as a twisted sexual predator. But as the trial unfolds, it is Paget who will be surprised...by Mary's secret motive for murder...by evidence that Mary is lying...by a woman prosecutor who believes Mary invented the story of rape...and by an enigmatic judge with an agenda of her own....
Amelia and Emerson settle in for a quiet summer in England. When a night watchman mysteriously dies in the British Museum, Amelia is on the scene with her trusty parasol, ready to do battle with a malignant mummy and a ghost from Emerson's past.
In the first of six witty short stories, 60s-something English barrister, Horace Rumpole, takes on the younger generation both at home and in the hallowed courtroom-while offending his esteemed colleagues and his draconian wife, Hilda.
Despite all evidence, world-class singer Maggie Tressider is convinced that she has killed someone. Her doctor suggests a psychiatrist, but Maggie hires a private investigator named Francis Killian to exorcise the demons that haunt her. But as Killian follows the paths that comprise Maggie's past, he begins to suspect the singer's fears are justified.
Sparks fly when two famous folksingers and former lovers encounter each other at a folk music seminar. When one of them disappears, Dominic Felse and his girlfriend Tossa struggle to find an explanation. Although he doesn't know it, Dominic holds one of the most important clues to solving the mystery.
When her elderly mother dies, the estranged daughter believes the death was connected to her mother's interest in cryonic suspension-freezing bodies with hopes of reviving them in the future. As Dr. Eric Parker, a private detective specializing in forensics, examines the corpse, he wonders if the daughter is a gold digger or whether there is a darker scheme.
