Part of Dismas Hardy, book 5
First published 1999
Dismas Hardy traded his police badge for a lawyer's briefcase. He works for a corporate client in downtown San Francisco, billing hours in a steady job his wife and children prefer. Then Graham Russo walks into his life. The former baseball star faces murder charges for killing his terminally ill father. The prosecution calls it murder. The defense claims mercy killing or suicide. Hardy finds himself representing a client he cannot trust. The key witness seems unreliable. Media attention grows as reporters and activists swarm the case. Hardy remembers how the legal system nearly destroyed him before. This trial forces him to question his beliefs about justice, family, and his own principles. The truth about the old man's death begins to surface. Hardy discovers that what he learns might make him the next target.
Genres: suspense, mystery, thriller, legal-thriller
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: moral-dilemma, unreliable-narrator
Setting: San Francisco
Period: Contemporary
640 pages · Mass Market Paperback · Dell
Content warnings: suicide, terminal-illness