Chilling Effect (Lucinda Hayes Mysteries)
by Marianne Wesson
from University Press of Colorado
Boulder attorney Lucinda Hayes pulls the gruesome page from the fax machine, not suspecting it will draw her into the repugnant realm of pornographic film and pit her against the giants of the mainstream film industry. Her reluctant agreement to represent Peggy Grayling, mother of a slain child, requires her to reach out to her law partner Tory Meadows and private investigator Linc Tolkien, but troubles her long-distance love affair with New York lawyer Sam Holt. As the case unfolds Cinda must call upon all her legal talent and argue for a new understanding of the law of free speech; it also forces her to revisit her past and face its ghosts. Equal parts courtroom drama, intellectual journey, and character study, Chilling Effect is Marianne Wesson's most provocative Lucinda Hayes mystery to date.
The Last Client of Luis Montez (Latino Voices)
by Manuel Ramos
from Northwestern University Press
What a difference a day makes. Inside of twenty-four hours, a cop rumored to have received bribes from Montez takes a header off a mountain, Jimmy Esch is found butchered, and the cops consider the attorney their top suspect. Lisa -- Montez's alibi -- has conveniently disappeared. As if all that wasn't enough, Montez must also cope with the news his father is in the hospital.
Distracted by family strife and a media circus, Montez broods on the latest wrong turns in his life. Then he decides to act. Jumping bail, he heads across the Rockies to the barrios of San Diego. It's not easy to unravel the perfect set-up when you're down to your last cent. But Montez pursues the truths that will clear his name, and ultimately confronts the powerful force that is Family.
Hard-luck attorney Luis Montez has hit the big-time at last. He's successfully defended Jimmy Esch, the good-for-nothing son of a powerful Denver family. No small bonus, Jimmy's attractive sister Lisa is, as the saying goes, appreciative. It's enough to make a man quit moping about a lost love.
What a difference a day makes. Inside of twenty-four hours, a cop rumored to have received bribes from Montez takes a header off a mountain, Jimmy Esch is found butchered, and the cops consider the attorney their top suspect. Lisa -- Montez's alibi -- has conveniently disappeared. As if all that wasn't enough, Montez must also cope with the news his father is in the hospital.
Distracted by family strife and a media circus, Montez broods on the latest wrong turns in his life. Then he decides to act. Jumping bail, he heads across the Rockies to the barrios of San Diego. It's not easy to unravel the perfect set-up when you're down to your last cent. But Montez pursues the truths that will clear his name, and ultimately confronts the powerful force that is Family.
Render Up the Body: A Novel of Suspense
by Marianne Wesson
from HarperTorch
In a case of life and death, the ultimate crime is telling the truth.
The director of a rape crisis center, former prosecutor Cinda Hayes is drawn back to the law when the court unexpectedly appoints her to handle the death row appeal of 22-year-old Jason Smiley, convicted of a brutal rape and murder.
Betraying her conscience, Cinda reluctantly begins her investigation. But when she discovered a crucial piece of unexamined evidence, she becomes convinced Jason may be the victim of a terrible injustice that reachesdeep into the highest offices of the court itself.
As she races to unravel a mystery twisted by ambition and vengeance, Cinda must render up the truth...or watch a young man die.
A Suggestion of Death
by Marianne Wesson
from Pocket Star
Penzler Pick, May 2000: Lawyers writing crime novels have been a rapidly growing sector of the mystery-writing population for well over a decade now, ever since Scott Turow hit the big time with his excellent Presumed Innocent in 1987. And then there was that fellow Grisham....
In fact, the legal mystery has been a genre niche for a century and a half: one of the first crime novels ever written, Bleak House by Charles Dickens, chronicled the courtroom battles of Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce in 1852-1853. Anna Katharine Green with The Leavenworth Case (1872) and Melville Davisson Post were the first great American practitioners of the legal thriller, soon followed by the Mr. Tutt stories of Arthur Train (an assistant New York district attorney in the 1920s) to the English legal-chambers-set novels of Michael Gilbert, Sarah Caudwell, John Mortimer, et al. The bandwagon has become more crowded on both sides of the Atlantic in recent years.
Fresh voices, however, are always welcome, and with her first series entry, Render Up the Body, Colorado law professor and former federal prosecutor Marianne Wesson achieved what most first-timers only dream of, solid reviews and word-of-mouth momentum that left her admirers waiting to see if she could deliver again. My verdict: she has. A Suggestion of Death takes Wesson's heroine, Cinda Hayes, into a looking-glass world of maverick jurisprudence, where a secret common-law court has set itself up to deal out judgments harking back to a simpler era.
Against all her instincts, Cinda, a Boulder attorney with a knack for attracting the vulnerable and the victimized, finds herself drawn to the charismatic Pike Sayers, who presides over the unsanctioned (and illicit) common-law courtroom. Though he quotes Auden to her, she's not convinced he's any better than the right-wing vigilantes who appear to be his followers. Worse still, she can't decide what role he's assuming in the matter of Mariah McKay, the troubled young daughter of a right-wing politician who is hiding from her family and has sought Cinda's advice on issues of past abuse by her father.
It's a tricky personal and professional obstacle course for Cinda as she attempts to protect both Mariah and herself. A Suggestion of Death has the benefit of the author's own familiarity with the territory. The straightforward legal questions are gripping, but so are the provocative issues raised by common-law adherents. Add the potential for deadly violence, and you've got a first-rate, surprise-streaked suspense novel. --Otto Penzler
When a scared young woman calls in to a radio talk show, Colorado attorney Cinda Hayes hears her cry for help. Less clear is whether twenty-year-old Mariah McKay's charges -- that her father, a respected senatorial candidate, traumatized her as a child -- can be proved, or if her fragmented memories are evidence enough. With the clock ticking on the statute of limitations, Cinda must move fast to pursue the case. But when Mariah takes refuge among a militia group in the Boulder-area plains, Cinda's quest for the truth leads her into deadly territory -- where someone wants to keep the past wrapped tightly in darkness....
Marianne Wesson creates rich suspense -- and untangles the ethical issues behind the most compelling legal scenarios -- in her bestselling fiction starring Cinda Hayes.
+++
