FRESH KILLS
by Carolyn Wheat
From the word go, Brooklyn lawyer Cass Jameson—back for a third outing (Where Nobody Dies, 1986, etc.)—smells something funny about her friend Marla Hennessey's request that Cass represent pregnant Amber Lundquist, who's agreed to give up her baby to Marla's clients, Josh and Ellie Greenspan. Sure enough, Amber announces at the last possible minute that she's changed her mind, that Josh Greenspan is the man who raped her, and that she's acquired a husband who'll help press her claim to baby Adam. And that's only the beginning of Amber's duplicity—most of which doesn't come out until after she's been found drowned in a Staten Island swamp. As Cass watches the lacerating accusations about her own complicity pile up, suspicions of killing Amber and kidnapping Adam are cast in dizzying succession on Amber's week- old husband; on the forlorn ex-husband who's still been dogging her; on an unscrupulous obstetrician and his shady ex-wife; and on Marla Hennessey herself. And that's not all, or nearly all, in a tale that expertly braids mounting emotional tension with a canny whodunit. Enough devious plotting for a dozen mysteries—and a hundred nightmares about adoptive parenthood.