In this fourth installment of the Kate Lange legal thriller series, Callow quickly grabs the reader’s attention with the opening scene. In the dead of night two intruders, a man and a woman, enter a private home in the south end of Halifax. The woman appears reluctant, but the man is insistent pushing her on to carry out their preconceived plan. When she falters, he pulls a knife and threatens her. The two are in the childhood home of Harry Owen, an up and coming MP and a bright light in an administration plagued with spending scandals, a sluggish economy and voter fatigue. Harry has come home to visit his parents Mel and Salma Owen. His father who is a paraplegic and his mother who is dying of cancer are both asleep in the next bedroom. Mel and Salma are the first to awake when they hear a disturbance downstairs. Mel quickly gets into his wheelchair grabs his gun and tells Salma to call the police. Harry now also awake, quickly heads downstairs as well. Gunshots are fired and the female intruder is injured, while the male intruder flees and escapes. When the police arrive the wounded woman is taken to hospital, seriously injured and in a coma. The police search the house but neither they nor the Owens have any idea what the intruders were up to as it appears nothing is missing. Suddenly Harry is accused of shooting an unarmed woman point blank with a prohibited weapon.
The female intruder is finally identified as Leah Roberts, but nothing seems to make sense. She is a woman with a sterling reputation who went through college on scholarships and now has a top job at KRYPTO-CYBER a technology firm. No one can figure out why she was in Harry’s home or what she was after. Nor do they know the identity of the other masked figure that got away.
As we rejoin Kate Lange after her last case, Nina Woods the managing partner of McGrath Woods has called her to a meeting. Nina explains that the firm once welcomed the attention Kate’s last two high profile cases brought them. But it has gone on too long and clients who want their business kept confidential no longer want the attention her name attracts. They are taking their business and their billable hours elsewhere and since profits are affected, the firm must take action. They have decided to reassign Kate to their Family Practice Division, an area of law that holds no interest for her. It is a demotion, plain and simple.
Kate had already been reconsidering her career, tired of focusing on defending large corporate interests and no longer interested in working for a firm whose feelings for her vacillate between love and hate. She wants to work in the Office of Public Prosecutions and has already discussed her aspirations with John Hillcrest the Chief Crown Prosecutor for the region. They are anxious to have her, but there are no openings and budget cuts are keeping the office tight. He advises her to get more criminal law experience. Working both sides of the law would be good preparation for the job and would give weight to her application when something becomes available.
Kate knows the professional direction she wants to go and resigns from McGrath Woods. Now on her own and without a job, she needs a place to work to get the criminal defense experience she needs but few options are available. Despite reservations from others, she teams up with Eddie Bent, a man she has worked with before. He is an alcoholic but also has a reputation as a good criminal lawyer. The two set up a partnership and Kate is ready for business. She will no longer have the beautiful office she had at McGrath Woods or the security of having a top notch firm behind her, but this move will help her achieve her new goal.
Meanwhile Leah Roberts lies fighting for her life in hospital. Her parents are in shock and cannot believe the crime for which she is accused. It simply does not fit with the girl they know as their daughter. They hire Kate as their lawyer and her preliminary investigation reinforces Leah’s sterling reputation, her actions the night of the crime completely inconsistent with her background and usual behavior.
Harry also needs legal advice to steer clear of this high profile catastrophe that may sink his political aspirations. He hires Randall Barret, a former managing partner of McGrath Woods and someone with whom Kate has a past. He was the man who tried to fire Kate three months after she first began working at the prestigious law firm but also the man who hired her when he was accused of killing his wife. They developed a very close relationship which was interrupted when Randall left for Manhattan to spend time with his family after his criminal investigation. He has only recently returned to Halifax and with recent events, the two are now facing each other defending opposite sides of the law.
As this story unfolds, readers are thrown into the complex world of technology with its cyber geeks, whistle blowers and hackers. We learn about the process of “doxing” and how hackers can be fueled by either good or bad intentions. Their goal may be simply to create general mayhem and chaos without doing great harm. But they may also hack for less well intentioned reasons: to fill the need for individual greed, to correct an imagined or perceived wrong or to carry out a murderous plot. Hackers are known as white hats or black hats, the white hats those who hack for the common good. The crime which began in the living room of the Owen home spreads out to a wider world to impact a greater number of people. As Kate investigates, the reader receives a primer on the cyber world and the internet, exploring the grey areas of whistle blowers and those who commit illegal acts for good reasons. The case highlights a number of issues including the fact the legal system has no way of dealing with white hats and the growing and almost imperceptible erosion of individual privacy and what it means for the future. These are issues which legislators should not only consider but sort out.
Once again this book can be read as a stand-alone, but reading this one in the order the series presents provides important background as Callow refers to previous cases, Kate’s past experience with her new partner Eddie and her relationship with Randall Barrett. It gives deeper meaning to the complex relationships and behavior of the key characters as well as providing a great context for the plot. My only criticism is the change in Harry as the story ended. It seemed a little too quick to be realistic, inserted only as a way to bring the story to its conclusion.
Like the previous three novels in the series this one is tightly plotted, has great suspense and interesting characters. It is a winner and I can hardly wait for the next one.