Whether it's poker or trial law, wisecracking Rita Morrone plays to win, especially when she takes on the defense of the Honorable Fiske Hamilton, a prominent federal judge accused of sexual harassment. And it's no coincidence that the judge is her live-in lover's father. Then the action turns deadly, and Rita finds herself at the center of a murder case. She probes deep into the murder, uncovering a secret life and suspects in shocking places. When the killer viciously ups the ante, Rita decides to end this lethal game. She lays it all on the line for the highest stakes ever -- her life.
When prosecutor Vicki Allegretti arrives at a rowhouse to meet a confidential informant, she finds herself in the wrong place at the wrong time -- and is almost shot to death. She barely escapes with her life, but cannot save the two others gunned down before her disbelieving eyes. Stunned and heartbroken, Vicki tries to figure out how a routine meeting on a minor case became a double homicide.
Vicki's suspicions take her to Devil's Corner, a city neighborhood teetering on the brink of ruin -- thick with broken souls, innocent youth, and a scourge that preys on both. But the deeper Vicki probes, the more she becomes convinced that the murders weren't random and the killers were more ruthless than she thought.
When another murder thrusts Vicki together with an unlikely ally, she buckles up for a wild ride down a dangerous street -- and into the cross-hairs of a conspiracy as powerful as it is relentless.
In this the second book of Elyse Larson's Women of Valor series, young war widow Nella Killian is caught in a frightening web of World War II espionage. When her close friend Peggy Jones comes to Nella's aid, Peggy finds herself entangled in the same dark web of danger. To whom can they turn for help when it seems that everyone is harboring deadly secrets? Can their faith surmount even the horrors of a diabolical plot?
For Nina Reilly, the mountain town of Lake Tahoe is home. It's where she forged a successful career as a tough, resourceful attorney - and raised her teenage son, Bob, alone. Back from a stint in Monterey, where her love life took a tumble, Nina has returned to her Tahoe law office with her old friends Sandy Whitefeather and Sandy's son, Wish. It isn't long before she has a new client whose wife was shot and killed during a casino-district robbery two years before. The police have no suspects, and the robbery victims, three students, lied about their identities and are hiding outside California and the reach of the court. Two of the witnesses have fled to a village not far from the home of Bob's father, Kurt Scott, in Germany. As Nina tries to unravel the mystery of one violent Tahoe night, a harrowing journey begins - one that takes her from the dark underworld of Tahoe's casinos to the halls of a prestigious East Coast university to Europe and an emotional reunion with Kurt. As old feelings are rekindled, Nina's case turns violent. Everyone has something to hide - the brilliant but unstable mathematics student who has made an astonishing discovery, the owner of a motel where the shooting took place, and the shooter, who has turned the whole case into a gigantic lie.
Nina's not sleeping much these days. She's recovering from a great loss, haunted by a killer who may still be tracking her, and working on a tough new case. Her client is a sixteen-year-old girl charged with first-degree murder. Nikki Zack is a rebel, a thief, and the best friend of Nina's son, Bob. Did she steal something from her uncle, a prominent plastic surgeon, and then kill him with an ancient samurai sword? To help find out, Nina calls in private investigator Paul Van Wagoner, her ex-lover and constant ally, whose bravado doesn't betray his own sleepless nights. As they work through the twisting lies surrounding Nikki, it becomes brutally clear to Nina that she must pull an ace out of her sleeve in the courtroom to save her client, and solve the mystery surrounding Paul to save herself.
A beautiful young woman is dead, her husband accused of the grisly murder. In seeking his acquital, defense attorney Victor Carl must confront not only a determined prosecutor and a police detective who might have set up his client, but also a strange dentist named Bob. Thanks to Bob, Victor is suddenly dressing better, dating a stunning woman, and both his economic prospects and his teeth are gleeming. It is all good, until Victor finds a troubling connection between Bob and the murdered wife. Is Bob a kind of saint, or is this obsessive Good Samaritan, in reality, a murderer?
Morgan Siler is one of Washington, D.C.'s most powerful K Street law firms, its roster of clients stocked with multibillion-dollar corporations. The obsessive efforts of its senior partner, Peter Morgan, have transformed it from an old-fashioned business into a veritable Goliath. As Peter reaches the pinnacle of his career, his firm is embroiled in two difficult cases: a pro bono death penalty case in Virginia, and a class action lawsuit brought against Hubble Chemical of Texas after an on site explosion killed dozens of workers.
Assigned to these cases is a group of seasoned partners and young associates struggling to make their way in the firm. Mark Clayton, fresh out of law school, is beginning to loathe the dullness of much of his work and to be frightened by the deterioration of his personal life when he is assigned to the pro bono case. Assisting him is the mercurial Walker Eliot, a brilliant third-year associate whose passion for the law is as great as his skill at unraveling its intricacies. The aggressive, profane, and wildly successful litigator Harold Fineman is leading the Hubble defense, assisted by the new associate Katja Phillips, whose odd combination of efficiency and idealism intrigue him, and Ryan Grady, whose quest to pick up girls is starting to interfere with his work.
In this complex, ambitious, and gripping first novel, Kermit Roosevelt vividly illustrates the subtle and stark effects of the law not only on the lives of a group of lawyers but also on communities and private citizens. In the Shadow of the Law is both a deftly plotted page-turner and a meditation on the life of the law, the organism that is a law firm, and the consequences for those who come within its powerful orbit.
Morgan Siler is one of Washington, D.C.'s most powerful K Street law firms, its roster of clients stocked with multibillion-dollar corporations. The obsessive efforts of its senior partner, Peter Morgan, have transformed it from an old-fashioned business into a veritable Goliath. As Peter reaches the pinnacle of his career, his firm is embroiled in two difficult cases: a pro bono death penalty case in Virginia, and a class action lawsuit brought against Hubble Chemical of Texas after an on site explosion killed dozens of workers. Assigned to these cases is a group of seasoned partners and young associates struggling to make their way in the firm. Mark Clayton, fresh out of law school, is beginning to loathe the dullness of much of his work and to be frightened by the deterioration of his personal life when he is assigned to the pro bono case. Assisting him is the mercurial Walker Eliot, a brilliant third-year associate whose passion for the law is as great as his skill at unraveling its intricacies. The aggressive, profane, and wildly successful litigator Harold Fineman is leading the Hubble defense, assisted by the new associate Katja Phillips, whose odd combination of efficiency and idealism intrigue him, and Ryan Grady, whose quest to pick up girls is starting to interfere with his work.
In this complex, ambitious, and gripping first novel, Kermit Roosevelt vividly illustrates the subtle and stark effects of the law not only on the lives of a group of lawyers but also on communities and private citizens. In the Shadow of the Law is both a deftly plotted page-turner and a meditation on the life of the law, the organism that is a law firm, and the consequences for those who come within its powerful orbit.
In the Company of Liars is that rare animal - a truly original thriller, strikingly fresh and unpredictable. Told chronologically in reverse, from its enigmatic end to its brilliant beginning, it's centered around a woman on trial for murder - Allison Pagone, who is caught between competing forces, each represented by someone who may not care if the pressure kills her in the end. A prosecutor wants Allison convicted and put on death row. An FBI agent believes she can squeeze her into ratting on her family. A daughter and an ex-husband need to save their own skins. And circling them all, a group who would prefer to kill her quietly and anonymously, but who also are not what they seem. Our first picture of Allison is in the moments after her death. Then the story moves backward in time like the acclaimed film Memento: an hour before, then a day, back and back until we're at the beginning and can see what's really happened - and most shocking, what has not. At every turn, Allison knows what she sees may not be what's real. The only sure thing is her place in a vortex of half-truths, threat, and suspicion. When her nightmare is over, where will she be? In the company of friends - or the company of liars?
In his sixteenth Matthew Scudder novel, All the Flowers Are Dying, New York Times bestselling author Lawrence Block takes the series to a new level of suspense and a new depth of characterization. Block puts Scudder -- and the reader -- at the very edge of the abyss.
A man in a Virginia prison awaits execution for three hideous murders he swears -- in the face of irrefutable evidence -- he did not commit. A psychologist who claims to believe the convict spends hours with the man in his death row cell, and ultimately watches in the gallery as the lethal injection is administered. His work completed, the psychologist heads back to New York City to attend to unfinished business.
Meanwhile, Scudder agrees to investigate the suspicious on-line lover of an acquaintance. It seems simple enough. At first. But when people start dying and the victims are increasingly closer to home, it becomes clear that a vicious killer is at work. And the final targets may be Matt and Elaine Scudder.
Melanie Vargas is a fearless, hardworking federal prosecutor in New York City with a rising career, a new baby and a troubled marriage. On an innocent evening stroll, Melanie stumbles across a horrifying crime scene:a wealthy former prosecutor from her office has been brutally murdered. It's the high-profile, headline-grabbing crime of the year, and Melanie wants in. But what she doesnt realize is that this opportunity will bring her dangerously close to a sexy, hard-to-resist FBI agent who may have secrets of his own. And -- ultimately -- into a race for her life with a dark, sadistic killer who seems to be one step ahead of her every inch of of the way. Most Wanted is the thrilling new novel that has already garnered rave reviews from today's masters of suspense.
Henry Matthews is a hotshot associate at at the most successful law firm in Chicago. His mentor at the firm likes the promise he sees in Henry and has decided to oversee his transformation from an ambitious young lawyer into an unscrupulous legal menace. Desperately wanting to shed his small-town past, Henry is only too willing to enlist in legal boot camp, working eighty hour weeks in the hopes of future rewards. This is a young man going places and only one thing mars his resume: he once studied for the ministry. Henry's presumed morals are an obstacle to be overcome in order to make it in the high-ticket legal world. When Henry is called back to Kansas to execute the will of the richest man in his small hometown, he discovers that Tyler Crandall left his considerable fortune not to his long-suffering wife, or to his children, but to a derelict madman known as the Birdman. Henry soon finds himself caught up in a web of secrets and lies dating back a quarter of a century, and involving some of the most powerful men in the state of Kansas. In trying to offer fair representation to the Birdman, he finds his life threatened, his career destroyed, and his ideals tested to the limit.
