Jessica Nagoshi is in her third year of economics at Deane University. The beautiful and intelligent coed is being groomed, along with her brother, to take control of her father’s multimillion-dollar empire. But her promising future is cut down when she’s brutally murdered in the greenhouse of her father’s vast estate. David Cavanaugh, Boston’s most sought after defense attorney, is unwittingly forced into this high-society murder case when his young protégé James Matheson, a final-year law student at Deane, is accused of the crime. But David soon realizes that the odds are already against him. Unspoken conspiracies, corporate secrets, and betrayals lead David down a road where every ally is an enemy in disguise—and into a world where privilege means anyone can get away with murder.
Sydney Bauer (Kimberly Scott) is the author of the crime series featuring Boston based criminal attorney David Cavanagh. Her debut novel Undertow, also the first novel in the series, was published in 2006 and won the Sisters in Crime Davitt Award for the best crime novel by an Australian Woman.
Sydney's background is in journalism and television. While studying for a Communications degree in the 1980s she worked as a copy girl at a major Australian newspaper and then secured a cadetship that led to a position as a crime, legal and courts reporter. She eventually moved on to become a features editor for an young women's magazine before finally changing direction completely and moving to television.
Following the lawyer with integrity and trusting in his instincts about people while sharing bits of his personal life relationships. His closest friends are a detective in the case he's working with the defendent, his girlfriend, also a lawyer, and his colleagues/staff for his law firm.
Shows the arrogance of elite families, college young men studying law and believing they are what makes the world go around. I had my doubts about a few characters, but missed the last clue that helped giveaway the truth. Definitely an intriguing story to finish.
An incompetent and emotional lawyer navigates a case full of stereotypes. Sydney Bauer explores the limits of the judicial system in this legal thriller.
It was grand. And it had enough twists and turns to keep me guessing, and guessing. Often the flowery 'prose' was really MORE than needed, as if the author was trying to show their thesaurus chops. But the story and the telling of it by the actor was excellent. Maybe I 4 star too many books, but if I enjoy them, and try to NOT be a G.D. literary critic, then a rollick'n goodread (sic) is worth it.
clever writer, interseting book. It took me a while to work out the guilty party and then found I was led up another garden path. Very imaginative. Well done. And tricky enough to fool me. I liked that.
Another great read from Sydney Bauer im so enjoying the David Cavanagha series, It took me a bit to get into this book and it took me almost a month to read (normally can finish a book in a week) but with that end glad I persisted. Looking forward to reading the next book in the series.
Listened to it as an audio book and the reader really brought all the characters to life. A story that has so many twists your never sure what is coming next.
Decent enough premise but the twists are blatantly telegraphed. Needed a serious edit - and a lesson on "show don't tell". Felt poorly researched which grated. Won't bother with others in the series.