MURDER SEASON

Murder and cover-ups in the city of the angels.

Once again the paparazzi are surrounding celebrity hangout Club 3 A.M. But this time the LAPD Deputy Chief is circling the wagons to keep them away and putting admired homicide detective Lena Gamble in charge while D.A. Higgins and his assistants Debi Watson and Steven Bennett are shunting legal maneuvers off to Greg Vaughan. What makes this case such a hot potato is that inside, dead, is friend to the glitterati, club owner Johnny Bosco, and Jacob Gant, much loathed by the public for his acquittal in the brutal rape/slaying of his teenage neighbor Lily Hight. Security tapes show Lily’s father driving away from the 3 A.M. scene with something that looks like a gun on the seat beside him. But Higgins, Watson and Bennett, still criticized for botching the Gant trial, realize that they’ll be in for more condemnation if Hight is charged for what the public deems justifiable homicide. When Lena contacts investigator Dan Cobb for background on Lily’s murder, the bodies start falling, the lies keep coming and it becomes clear that the D.A.’s office, knowing full well that Gant was innocent, prosecuted him anyway, paving the way for the Bosco and Gant murders. One final twist will nudge the death total past nine, leaving Lena the last one standing. Solid police work from Lena (The Lost Witness, 2009, etc.). If, like Shakespeare, you want to kill all the lawyers, this is your must-read.