DON'T LOOK AWAY

A former defense attorney comes out of retirement when her husband is charged with six murders.

Leslie Woodhouse is enjoying an early retirement in a beachfront Florida condo, whiling away the days with her companionable second husband, Robert, a former college art professor. She doesn’t much miss her career as a defense lawyer somewhat notorious for finding loopholes for her clients, but she’s thinking about it more as a story unspools in local news. Someone the media has dubbed the “Gulf Coast Killer” has abducted six people in towns near the beaches, apparently imprisoning them until they die of starvation and dehydration, then dumping the bodies. But the latest case is different: A 40-year-old woman was grabbed from the beach near Leslie and Robert’s home. She hasn’t been found, but her 8-year-old daughter got away—after getting a look at the abductor. Leslie has other things to worry about, though: Her beloved daughter, Stephanie Tressler, is off at her first year of college, and Leslie’s wealthy, flamboyant, but down-to-earth sister, Patricia Colton, has been diagnosed with cancer. Leslie also frets about Robert’s only family, his estranged son, Weston Adekins. The young man was born after Robert had a one-night stand with a student, and Weston fairly seethes with anger at Robert’s almost total absence from his and his mother’s lives. Leslie’s attention is forced to a focus when Robert is arrested and charged with the Gulf Coast Killer murders. The slight, mild-mannered 62-year-old seems an unlikely suspect, but the police make a serious case. The book has some suspenseful elements and makes skillful use of alternating first-person points of view. But the identity of the killer is clear early on, which makes maintaining suspense difficult. Some plot points stretch credulity: Would a court really permit a lawyer to defend her own spouse in a murder case? And a climactic chase brings some surprises but goes on so long it ends up dead in the water.

A promising setup about a defense lawyer facing her own limitations bogs down in obvious clues.