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MALICE PREPENSE

Oregon lawyer Barbara Holloway is catapulted into her latest case, defending land management agent Ted Wendover on a murder charge, when her father Frank wins the acquittal of Ted's son Teddy. The case against Teddy, the Holloways agree, is preposterous. Teddy is 28 going on 9, a man who's been stuck in a happy, well-adjusted childhood since a head injury on a school field trip 15 years ago. Now someone has killed Lois Hedrick, a classmate who was on the field trip; Harry Knecht, a teacher who tried to save Teddy from his accidental fall; and retired school principal Mary Sue McDonald—and killed them all with what looks very much like the rocks Teddy loves to collect. But a lot has happened since 1980—Lois Hedrick has been writing a dissertation on Oregon gold mining, and Harry Knecht was elected to Congress- -and the Holloways (The Best Defense, 1994, etc.) are convinced their murders have a lot more to do with a crafty land grab than with Teddy's old injury. But when Frank unexpectedly discovers an alibi for Teddy, the case against him proves to be a mere curtain-raiser for the far more convincing one against his father, whose reasons for killing Congressman Knecht only begin with the possibility that he blames him for his son's permanent childhood. In order to defend Ted, Barbara will have to put Denver consultant John Mureau, AWOL from Knecht's murder scene, on the stand. Mureau, however, has a damning history of mental illness. And the judge who's drawn the case, former prosecutor Jordan Ariel, isn't about to let Barbara's high-minded, long- winded cross-examinations come between him and a swift verdict. As usual in the Holloways' cases, veteran Wilhelm serves up far too much for comfort: Teddy's inscrutable sunniness, his family's domestic problems, Barbara's affair with John Mureau, the ungainly gold-lust intrigue, and some of the most punishing courtroom scenes on record. You've gotta feel for that poor judge. (Author tour)

Pub Date: July 29, 1996

ISBN: 0-312-14364-8

Page Count: 368

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1996

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THE A LIST

Proficient but eminently predictable. Amid all the time shifts and embedded backstories, the most surprising feature is how...

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A convicted killer’s list of five people he wants dead runs the gamut from the wife he’s already had murdered to franchise heroine Ali Reynolds.

Back in the day, women came from all over to consult Santa Clarita fertility specialist Dr. Edward Gilchrist. Many of them left his care happily pregnant, never dreaming that the father of the babies they carried was none other than the physician himself, who donated his own sperm rather than that of the handsome, athletic, disease-free men pictured in his scrapbook. When Alexandra Munsey’s son, Evan, is laid low by the kidney disease he’s inherited from his biological father and she returns to Gilchrist in search of the donor’s medical records, the roof begins to fall in on him. By the time it’s done falling, he’s serving a life sentence in Folsom Prison for commissioning the death of his wife, Dawn, the former nurse and sometime egg donor who’d turned on him. With nothing left to lose, Gilchrist tattoos himself with the initials of five people he blames for his fall: Dawn; Leo Manuel Aurelio, the hit man he’d hired to dispose of her; Kaitlyn Todd, the nurse/receptionist who took Dawn’s place; Alex Munsey, whose search for records upset his apple cart; and Ali Reynolds, the TV reporter who’d helped put Alex in touch with the dozen other women who formed the Progeny Project because their children looked just like hers. No matter that Ali’s been out of both California and the news business for years; Gilchrist and his enablers know that revenge can’t possibly be served too cold. Wonder how far down that list they’ll get before Ali, aided once more by Frigg, the methodical but loose-cannon AI first introduced in Duel to the Death (2018), turns on them?

Proficient but eminently predictable. Amid all the time shifts and embedded backstories, the most surprising feature is how little the boundary-challenged AI, who gets into the case more or less inadvertently, differs from your standard human sidekick with issues.

Pub Date: April 2, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-5011-5101-9

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019

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A KILLER EDITION

An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.

Too much free time leads a New Hampshire bookseller into yet another case of murder.

Now that Tricia Miles has Pixie Poe and Mr. Everett practically running her bookstore, Haven’t Got a Clue, she finds herself at loose ends. Her wealthy sister, Angelica, who in the guise of Nigela Ricita has invested heavily in making Stoneham a bookish tourist attraction, is entering the amateur competition for the Great Booktown Bake-Off. So Tricia, who’s recently taken up baking as a hobby, decides to join her and spends a lot of time looking for the perfect cupcake recipe. A visit to another bookstore leaves Tricia witnessing a nasty argument between owner Joyce Widman and next-door neighbor Vera Olson over the trimming of tree branches that hang over Joyce’s yard—also overheard by new town police officer Cindy Pearson. After Tricia accepts Joyce’s offer of some produce from her garden, they find Vera skewered by a pitchfork, and when Police Chief Grant Baker arrives, Joyce is his obvious suspect. Ever since Tricia moved to Stoneham, the homicide rate has skyrocketed (Poisoned Pages, 2018, etc.), and her history with Baker is fraught. She’s also become suspicious about the activities at Pets-A-Plenty, the animal shelter where Vera was a dedicated volunteer. Tricia’s offered her expertise to the board, but president Toby Kingston has been less than welcoming. With nothing but baking on her calendar, Tricia has plenty of time to investigate both the murder and her vague suspicions about the shelter. Plenty of small-town friendships and rivalries emerge in her quest for the truth.

An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.

Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-9848-0272-9

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Berkley

Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019

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