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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 eliminate her quietly and anonymously, but who also are not what they seem. Our first picture of Allison is in the moments following her death. The story then moves backward in time like the cult film Memento: an hour earlier, then the day before, back and back to the beginning, until we can see what's really happened—and, most shocking, what hasn't. At every turn, Allison Pagone knows that what she sees may not be what's real. The only sure thing is her place in a vortex of half-truths, threats, and suspicion. When her nightmare is over, will she awake in the company of friends—or in the company of liars?
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#5 in the Women's Murder Club Series
It is a wild race against time as Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer and the newest member of the Women's Murder Club, attorney Yuki Castellano, lead an investigation against a hospital administration determined to shield its reputation at all costs. And while the hospital wages an explosive court battle that grips the entire nation, the Women's Murder Club hunts for a merciless killer—who just might be one of the medical staff.
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Assistant U.S. Attorney Vicki Allegretti goes to meet a confidential informant and finds herself facing a loaded 9 mm Glock semiautomatic weapon, wielded by a panicky teenager. Violence is the last thing this neophyte lawyer expects. The case is easy, the kind given to new ADAs to help them cut their teeth. Yet almost before she has time to react, her partner is dead, shot in the chest. From that high-octane introduction to her job, Vicki vows to continue with the case, protect her informant, and find the shadowy figure behind the death of her partner. This decision will take her to the depths of the federal detention center's "bowl," to a row house on the street where she grew up, and to the posh suburbs where her parents now live. Set against the gritty backdrop of a modern American city and imbued with Lisa Scottoline's trademark style and wit, Cater Street is the story of a determined young lawyer seeking justice.
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#4 in the Women's Murder Club Series
In a deadly late-night showdown, San Francisco police lieutenant Lindsay Boxer fires her weapon and sets off a dramatic chain of events that leaves a police force disgraced, a family destroyed, and Lindsay herself at the mercy of twelve jurors. During a break in the trial, she retreats to a picturesque town that is reeling from a string of grisly murders—crimes that bear a link to a haunting, unsolved case from her rookie years. Now, with her friends in the Women's Murder Club, Lindsay must battle for her life on two fronts: in a trial rushing to a climax, and against an unknown adversary willing to do anything to hide the truth about the homicides—including kill again?
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#9 in the Rosato & Associates Series
With the halfhearted okay of her boss at the boutique Philly firm of Rosato & Associates, insecure young lawyer Mary DiNunzio takes on a pro bono case—which is Latin for not paying squat. What's more, the client is dead and the case is half a century old, involving an Italian fisherman interned at a camp in Montana during World War II. Mary wants to prove herself, but she ends up drowning in documents—and a lost cause. Add to that a colleague who keeps fixing her up with blind dates from hell. But things suddenly heat up when people Mary has interviewed start dropping dead. And Mary suspects she's being followed. Soon she's on the run for her life.
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Author Miles Van Meter is on a book tour to promote his sensational bestseller Sleeping Beauty, a true-crime account of a deeply personal subject: the attack by a serial killer that left his twin sister, Casey, in a coma. Tonight the audience waits to hear Miles discuss recent developments in his sister's case -- unaware that pieces of this complex puzzle of violence, unknown even to the author, are about to be revealed. Six years earlier, life was much simpler for everyone involved, especially seventeen-year-old Ashley Spencer, a popular high school soccer star. Then one night an intruder entered Ashley's home and murdered her father and her best friend. Traumatized and suffering from a crippling sense of survivor guilt, Ashley is ready to give up on both soccer and life until help comes from an unexpected source -- a scholarship to the Oregon Academy, an elite private school, is extended to her by school dean Casey Van Meter. The school quickly becomes a haven for both Ashley and her mother, Terri. As Ashley regains her sense of self through the school's soccer program, Terri joins a writing group for adults led by Joshua Maxfield, a former literary wunderkind who has disappeared from the bestseller lists since his second book was panned by both critics and fans. Then tragedy strikes again and Ashley has to run for her life, unaware that the key to her survival is in the one book she's afraid to read -- Sleeping Beauty.
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In Jury of One, Shelly Trotter, an able and determined lawyer and a children's rights advocate, is thrust into a world in which she's completely unschooled—the criminal court. Her client is a 17-year-old accused of killing a policeman, and she begins to suspect that he may have been involved in an undercover operation to entrap dirty cops, though his role in the scheme remains unclear. Was he the target or the bait—and what does the prosecution really have against him? Then comes the shocker: Shelly fears that she has a connection to this boy, something she has kept secret for years, knowledge that she has hidden from her family and friends for most of her adult life. And as the evidence against the boy mounts, she finds that nothing—not legal ethics, not a statewide political campaign that could swing in the balance—will stop her from keeping him off death row. For with this client, she is truly a jury of one.
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In a Byzantine world of big-city politics full of payback and promise, ambition and disgrace. Jon Soliday is legal counsel to a powerful politician-also his childhood best friend—who is running for governor. The two have shared political success and undying loyalty. They also share a dark secret from the summer of 1979: a party that resulted in the death of a teenage girl. Soliday was implicated but, through his friend's political connections, escaped legal trouble. Soliday remembers little from that night, but carries an uncertain guilt he can't shake. Now, as the players from 1979 fall prey to an unknown killer, Soliday is himself accused of murder. And as the puzzle unfolds, the people he most suspects are those he has entrusted with his defense—his ambitious defense attorney and his oldest friend. A man's past, both what he remembers and what he fears, has never felt so crushing—and may well leave him without a future.
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#8 in the Rosato & Associates Series
Lawyer Bennie Rosato is fighting the battle of her life—against her own twin. The action starts innocently enough, with a stolen wallet, but in no time events escalate, and Alice Connelly wreaks havoc that can be created only by a dead ringer. Connelly tries to destroy Bennie's law firm, Rosato & Associates, and then strikes at her very heart—which just happens to be otherwise engaged by a handsome, hunky stranger with the perfect amount of chest hair. But when a brutal murder occurs, Bennie realizes that the stakes have turned deadly. And the face of evil looks like her own.
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#3 in the Amanda Jaffe Series
Lawyer Amanda Jaffe uncovers the trail of a fiercely secret fraternity of powerful and dangerous men behind a political conspiracy A series of seemingly unrelated deaths culminate in the gruesome murder of a U.S. Senator just days before he is going to be his Party's nominee for the Presidency. Portland hometown hero Tim Kerrigan—Heisman trophy winner and now District Attorney—prosecutes the case. Representing the alleged murderer is Amanda Jaffe, still recovering from the traumatic events that concluded the sensational New York Times bestseller Wild Justice. Her client claims to have information linking the Senator to a mysterious circle of high-ranking judges, public officials, and South American drug lords—an affiliation that is rumored to go back 30 years—known as the Courthouse Athletic Club. Amanda must hope her client can stay alive long enough for the truth to be revealed.
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#7 in the Rosato & Associates Series
Anne Murphy is the redheaded rookie at the Philadelphia law firm of Rosato & Associates, and one morning she wakes up to front-page headlines proclaiming LAWYER MURDERED—above her own picture. To find the killer, Anne's got to play dead—if she wants to stay alive. Though she tries to go it alone, she quickly realizes she'll have to trust people she barely knows—colleagues who hate her, a homicide squad that wants her out of the crime-fighting business, and a new love who inconveniently happens to be opposing counsel.
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#2 in the Amanda Jaffe Series
Daniel Ames is living the American dream. Though born into poverty and living on the streets by the age of fifteen, Daniel has overcome every obstacle -- and now is an associate at Reed, Briggs, Portland's most prestigious law firm, earning more money than he ever imagined possible. But when Aaron Flynn enters his life, Daniel finds himself caught between his towering ambition and his bedrock idealism. Flynn, a charismatic civil litigator, sues Geller Pharmaceuticals -- Reed, Briggs's biggest client -- for manufacturing a drug that he claims causes unspeakable birth defects. Daniel is certain the claim has no merit -- until a memo written by a Geller scientist is found, detailing the shocking results of a study that implicates the company in a horrific lie. Could Daniel unwittingly be helping Geller cover up a dark secret? As he begins to investigate, his world comes tumbling down around him. His work is sabotaged, he's accused of professional incompetence, and he's fired. Twelve hours later the man who fired him is murdered. Daniel is arrested. With help from two women, including lawyer Amanda Jaffe (whom we met in Wild Justice), Daniel scrambles to clear his name and save his reputation -- and in the process unearths a trail of deceit that leads back to a series of unsolved kidnappings seven years earlier. But someone doesn't want this trail explored, and Daniel becomes the target of a vicious killer who will stop at nothing to prevent the truth from being revealed.
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#6 in the Rosato & Associates Series
Judy Carrier takes the case of her career to defend Anthony Lucia, fondly known as "Pigeon Tony," who freely admits to killing his lifelong enemy in order to settle a personal vendetta. Her client's guilt, however, is only the beginning of Judy's problems. The victim's family wants revenge and is determined to finish off Pigeon Tony and Judy before the case goes to trial. Then there's Pigeon Tony's hunky grandson, who makes Judy think about everything but the law. In a case steeped in blood and memory, it will take brains and a lot of luck to save Pigeon Tony. But if anyone will see justice done, it's this gutsy girl who will risk everything to win—including her life.
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Marty Kalish is a young man suffocating in the heat of an affair with a married woman named Rachel. When Rachel's husband disappears one night, Marty is one of the first to be questioned. With few likely suspects, the police arrest him for murder. We know Marty was outside their home that night. We know he has a motive. We know he's guilty of something. But is it murder? Everything we have learned—about Marty as a man, his affair with Rachel, and the night in question—comes from Marty himself. But as the trial unfolds to a jaw-dropping conclusion, we learn that there is more to the truth than one man's narrow line of vision.
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#1 in the Amanda Jaffe Series
Thursday: Subject is still combative after four days of applied pain, sleep deprivation and minimal food. Vice squad detective Bobby Vasquez, for months on the trail of a slippery underworld figure, receives an anonymous tip that directs him to a mountain cabin. He races through the idyllic Oregon woods, expecting to close the book on a long-standing vendetta. What he finds instead opens a Pandora's box of horror that will haunt him to his dying day. 8:10: Subject bound and gaffed and placed in upstairs closet at end of hall. Turned out lights in house, drove off, then parked and doubled back. Watched from woods. Within hours, Vincent Cordoni -- a brilliant surgeon with a history of violence and drug abuse -- is arrested for a heinous crime. Facing a seemingly insurmountable wall of evidence, he turns to Portland's top criminal defense attorney, Frank Jaffe-who, along with his ambitious daughter, Amanda, must put on an inspired defense. Amanda's first taste of criminal defense work is as intoxicating as it is chilling, but it raises moral questions she's loath to address. Is she defending an innocent man? Or is she using her considerable skills to set a monster free? Then Cardoni disappears under bizarre circumstances. Four years later, a second set of murders has begun .... 8:55: Subject exits house, naked and barefoot, armed with kitchen knife. Remarkable strength of character. Breaking her will be a challenge. Has Cardoni resurfaced to ply his deadly trade anew? Is there a copycat killer? Or has the real killer been someone else all along? The police will do everything they can to stop Cardoni -- but they have to find him first. Following a twisting trail of clues, including a harrowing diary that clinically records the killer's horrible deeds, Amanda Jaffe and Bobby Vasquez join the hunt-and themselves become targets of the twenty-first century's first genuinely monstrous psychopath.
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#5 in the Rosato & Associates Series
When attorney Jack Newlin discovers his wife dead in their home, he's convinced he knows who killed her—and is equally determined to hide the truth. He decides to frame himself for murder, and to seal his fate he hires the most inexperienced lawyer he can find: a reluctant rookie by the name of Mary DiNunzio from the hot Philadelphia firm of Rosato & Associates. But hiring Mary may turn out to be his biggest mistake. She doubts Jack's confession, and her ethics and instincts tell her she can't defend a man who wants to convict himself. Smarter, gutsier, and more persistent than she has any right to be, Mary sets out to prove what really happened—because, as any lawyer knows, a case is never as simple as it seems. And nothing is ever certain until the final moment of truth.
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#4 in the Rosato & Associates Series
Accused of committing cold-blooded murder, Alice Connolly wants one lawyer to defend her: Bennie Rosato. But the no-nonsense Philadelphia criminal attorney isn't interested—until she meets the accused killer face to face—and can't believe what she sees. Alice claims she's Bennie twin—and the woman does bear an uncanny resemblance to her. But Bennie grew up an only child. She doesn't have a sister. Or does she? Agreeing to take the case, Bennie plunges into the mystery of the murder and into the depths of her own past—a twisting search for justice and the truth that will keep the seasoned attorney guessing and leave readers breathless until the verdict is in.
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Judge Richard Quinn is young, idealistic, and honest to a fault. That's why he's handed the most sensational homicide case in Oregon history. Locked in a race for the U.S. Senate, Ellen Crease gunned down the intruder who murdered her wealthy husband. In a single, brutal instant she became a widow, a victim, and a hero. Yet disturbing questions remain. What secrets did the man who started his fortune running mortuaries keep that might have cost him his life? What about the son frozen out of his will? Or his wife's political enemies? And what about Ellen Crease herself? Soon it becomes clear that a deadly plot of murder, blackmail, passion, and double cross is unfolding around Judge Richard Quinn. And unless he breaks the rules, justice will not only be blind, it will be the final victim.
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#3 in the Rosato & Associates Series
Criminal lawyer Marta Richter is hours away from winning an acquittal for her client, millionaire businessman Elliot Steere. Elliot is on trial for the murder of a homeless man who had tried to carjack him. But as the jury begins deliberations, Marta discovers the chilling truth about her client's innocence. Taking justice into her own hands, she sets out to prove the truth, with the help of two young associates. In an excruciating game of beat-the-clock with both the jury and the worst blizzard to hit Philadelphia in decades, Marta will learn that the search for justice isn't only rough—it can also be deadly.
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#2 in the Rosato & Associates Series
Benedetta "Bennie" Rosato is a maverick lawyer who prosecutes police misconduct and excessive-force cases, and business at her firm has never been better. Then, without warning, a savage murder tears the firm apart. All evidence points to Bennie, who has motive aplenty and an unconfirmable alibi. Her world turns upside down as the lawyer becomes the client and the cops she once prosecuted are now after her with a vengeance. To prove her innocence, Bennie probes deep into the murder. Then another killing takes place. Running for her life, Bennie is a fugitive armed only with her wits and courage. She will find the real killer—or die trying.
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Peter Hale is a young attorney struggling to make his own mark in his father's venerable law firm when he is presented with the opportunity of a lifetime. During the trial of a multimillion-dollar case, Peter's father, the lead counsel, suffers a heart attack and asks Peter to move for a mistrial until he's feeling better. Peter decides this is his only chance to prove to his father that he is the terrific lawyer he knows himself to be, and he chooses to carry on with the case against his father's wishes. In his zeal to prove himself, Peter neglects his client and ends up losing everything—the case, his job, and his father. Unemployed and disinherited, Peter takes the only job he is offered—that of a public defender in a small Oregon town. He hopes that if he can make good there, he can reinstate himself in his father's good graces. But his ambition again gets the best of him when he takes on a death-penalty case, representing a mentally retarded man accused of the brutal hatchet murder of a college coed. He's in way over his head, and it's only when Peter realizes that his greed and his ego may end up killing his client that he begins to understand what it really takes to be a good lawyer—and to become a man.
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Whether it's at the poker table or in a court room, wisecracking attorney Rita Morrone plays to win, especially when it comes to her latest case, which is also her most personal. She's defending the Honorable Fiske Hamilton, a prominent federal judge accused of sexual harassment. It's no coincidence her client happens to be her live-in lover's father. When the action suddenly turns deadly, Rita finds herself at the center of a tense murder mystery. The search for answers plunges her deep into the investigation, uncovering a secret life and suspects in shocking places. Then the killer viciously ups the ante. To end this lethal game, Rita will lay it all on the line for the highest stakes ever—her life.
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Laura Rizzati, a law clerk for Oregon Supreme Court Justice Robert Griffen, is found slain late one night in the deserted courthouse. Her office is ransacked—but nothing seems to be missing. There are no suspects and no clues. The following month Griffen himself is killed by a car bomb in the driveway of his Portland home. This time, though, there is a suspect: in a shocking turn of events, Abigail Griffen, star prosecutor in the Multnomah County District Attorney's office and estranged wife of Justice Griffen, is charged with first degree murder.
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Starting over again after her divorce, Philadelphia lawyer Grace Rossi works part time for handsome Judge Armen Gregorian in the federal appeals court. Assigned to an explosive death penalty appeal, a long day of work unexpectedly leads to a night of passion with the chief judge. But when Gregorian is found dead the next morning, an apparent suicide, Grace knows she must uncover the truth. Suddenly this working mother finds herself investigating a murder, unearthing a secret bank account, and following a trail of bribery and judicial corruption hidden even from the FBI. In no time at all, Grace under fire takes on a whole new meaning. With the help of an undercover federal agent, she will risk everything to see justice done.
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In Portland, Oregon, the wives of several prominent businessmen have disappeared without a trace, leaving behind only a black rose and a note with a simple message: "Gone, But Not Forgotten." An identical series of disappearances occurred in Hunter's Point, New York, ten years ago—but the killer was caught, the case was closed and the special "rose killer" task force was disbanded. Betsy Tannenbaum, a Portland wife and mother who has gained national recognition as a feminist defense attorney, is retained by multimillionaire Portland developer Martin Darius—for no apparent reason. Nancy Gordon, a homicide detective for the Hunter's Point Police Department and an original member of the "rose killer" task force, hasn't slept a full night in ten years, haunted by nightmares of a sadistic killer who, she swears, is still out there. . . Alan Page, the Portland district attorney, trying to make sense of the sudden series of disappearances, opens his front door one evening to find Nancy Gordon on his doorstep—determined to tell him a story he won't soon forget. Across the country, in Washington, D.C., the President of the United States has just selected United States Senator Raymond Colby to be the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. In a private meeting, Colby assures the President there are no skeletons in his closet.
