MAXIMUM SECURITY

A Cape Cod attorney’s third hopeless case may be an uphill battle for Connors—and her readers as well.

Years before he became Marty Nickerson’s partner and lover, Harry Madigan was smitten with one of his law-school classmates, a statuesque southern beauty who couldn’t imagine why he’d waste his future on criminal law. Now that she’s divorced from more highly paid Glen Powers (trusts and estates) and widowed of even more prosperous Herbert Rawlings (corporate mergers and acquisitions), guilelessly greedy Louisa Rawlings just might need to get reacquainted with the criminal bar. Det. Lt. Mitch Walker isn’t sure he buys her story about being out on the links and coming home to find her husband and his boat, the Carolina Girl, missing. And once Herb’s body surfaces, tied to some fishing tackle that practically guaranteed it would bob up after a week, the Chatham Police Department is even more suspicious of Louisa’s fingerprints on the murder weapon and her two million motives for murder. Insisting that he can’t defend Louisa himself, Harry passes him off to Marty and their junior associate, Kevin Kydd, and in a flash the whole firm is legally compromised, their future almost as grim as Louisa’s and not much more interesting. Though Judge Leon Long is predictably charmed by Louisa’s demure courtroom outbursts, Barnstable County District Attorney Geraldine Schilling seems determined to lock her up for life—unless, of course, Marty can find evidence against Herb’s daughter Anastasia, her deadbeat companion Lance Phillips, Louisa’s financial advisor Steven Collier, or some other convenient alternative. What are the odds?

No ethical quiddities, no fraught cross-examinations, no courtroom coups, no big surprises of any kind whatsoever. After two splendid outings (Temporary Sanity, 2003, etc.), Marty’s certainly entitled to a breather, and that’s exactly what this fast-moving, deeply ordinary case is.