False Testimony: A Crime Novel

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What does a lawyer do when she discovers her client may be a liar, or worse? Charles Kendrick, the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, has been named a "person of interest" in connection with the disappearance of his twenty-five-year-old spokesperson, Michelle Forrester. Attorney Marty Nickerson is representing Kendrick, a high-profile resident of Cape Cod, but soon finds that parts of his story don't check out. Meanwhile, Marty and her law partner -- and lover -- Harry Madigan, are defending ex-con Derrick Holliston, who stands accused of murdering a popular local priest on Christmas Eve. He admits the killing, but claims, improbably, that he acted in self-defense. Michelle Forrester's body is found the day Derrick Holliston's trial begins, which leaves Marty and Harry facing two mounting legal battles and two clients whose stories don't make sense. Together they must confront the law in all its maddening complexity, battling for -- or maybe against? -- their own cagey clients in order to see that justice is ultimately served. From Publishers WeeklyConnors's latest trip to the courtroom (after Maximum Security) follows busy, resilient Cape Cod attorney Marty Nickerson and her partner in love and law Harry Madigan as they handle two cases in which their clients' stories are highly suspicious. Marty is representing U.S. Sen. from the state of Massachusetts Charles Kendrick, whose attractive, talented 25-year-old staffer Michelle Forrester mysteriously disappears. Harry Madigan, meanwhile, is appointed public defender for recently released young con Derrick Holliston, who pleads self-defense in the brutal Christmas Eve murder of Fr. Francis Patrick McMahon, claiming the priest made untoward sexual advances. Both cases explode: Kendrick, who had a heated love affair with Michelle, admits that he was with her the night before she vanished, and Holliston commits "tactical suicide" with a short-lived decision to represent himself in court. A mad scramble ensues to assemble witnesses for the Kendrick case just as Michelle's body washes up in picturesque Pleasant Bay, an implicating quarter mile from the senator's estate. Connors smartly keeps her sleuthing tight and her courtroom acrobatics succinct for another excellent, fast-moving courtroom drama headed by a plucky, energetic heroine. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistPartners in love and law, Cape Cod attorneys Marty Nickerson and Harry Madigan don't know how they got themselves mixed up with the two crazy cases they face in their latest outing. In one, a young man barely out of juvenile hall is facing a murder rap and decides to defend himself (though by the judge's orders the attorneys have to sit at the counsel table "just in case"). And then there's Charles Kendrick, a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, who some believe may have been involved in the disappearance of a young office worker. Something seems amiss with both of these clients' stories, and Marty and Harry, usually so tuned in to what's truthful and what's not, feel like they're grasping at straws with two defendants who are opposite in social status but equally stubborn. A quick read with plenty of interesting twists and turns, this fourth outing by established trial attorney Connors is sure to please courtroom-drama fans. Mary Frances WilkensCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved