Until Proven Innocent

by Joan Dial

Strangers when they meet, two women become unexpected allies when a dangerous man reappears in their lives. Mystery writer Lisa Whitaker's husband is a fugitive on the FBI's most wanted list, wanted for murder and the theft of uncut diamonds. In the year following Whitaker's disappearance Lisa has tried to resist a growing attraction to the homicide detective, Dan Barrett, investigating the case. Dan suspects she may have been complicit in her husband's crimes but is falling in love with her. Lisa's publisher forwards a note from a 'J.W. Smith' asking for Lisa's help to plan a perfect murder. She is both apprehensive and curious when she sees the postmark on the envelope and reads a post script stating that Smith has uncovered Lisa's own dark secret. J.W. Smith is Jill Wayland , a former elementary school teacher, who had been Whitaker's live-in girlfriend five years earlier. She had experienced a memory fugue due to psychological/physical trauma when she and Whitaker parted and fears what she might have done that she can't remember. She now has a new identity and a new life she is desperate to protect. Her life is thrown into turmoil when Whitaker calls her demanding that she help him locate his wife who has moved to an unknown location. Whitaker had suggested Jill send the J.W. Smith note to Lisa's publisher for forwarding, as she had always responded to reader mail. A bounty hunter locates Whitaker in Mexico but is unable to capture him and he returns to California where past secrets and present events collide. But who is telling the truth? Is Whitaker guilty of the crimes he's accused of committing? Was Lisa complicit? What is she hiding? What terrible event caused Jill's temporary amnesia? Jill has a husband she adores and Lisa is falling in love with detective Dan, yet both women find themselves again becoming bewitched by Whitaker, the man they had loved and lost. As fragments of memory of what happened during her fugue return to Jill will she discover she was guilty of a crime? Both women remember the handsome, sinfully seductive man they had loved and want to believe him when he tells them he was framed for murder. But Jill adores her musician husband and Lisa is falling in love with detective Dan Barrett. As Whitaker inveigles his way back into their lives they will discover nothing is or was as it appeared to be. Set in the late 1970's and early 80's before the internet, cell phones or DNA, life was different but love, hate and passion have always remained the same.

298 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 5, 2018

About the author

Also wrote under the names:
Katherine Sinclair
Katherine Kent
Amanda York

Reviews

[Beverly Buck · Rating 5 out of 5]

Which person was guilty?

Joan Dial never disappoints me. Another book that is hard to put down. The intertwining between the three women helps for following the plot.