"exciting legal thriller"
After years of pursuit, Nina Reilly finally realizes she
loves Paul and is willing to see where their relationship
will take them. She moves out of her home on Lake Tahoe,
rents out her law practice, and moves into Paul's place in
Carmel. Nina's former assistant Sandi's son Wish
accompanies them because he is working during the summer
for Paul in his private investigative business and is
living in Nina's rental home with two other young men. One night against his better judgment, Wish joins his
friend up in the woods near the Siesta Court homes to catch
and film an arsonist who has already set two fires. Things
go terribly wrong and Wish's friend dies. The arsonist
injures Wish who is later arrested on an assortment of
charges including homicide. It will take all of Nina's
considerable legal and investigative skills to get enough
evidence to free a client she knows is innocent. PRESUMPTION OF DEATH is a very good and exciting legal
thriller but also is so much more. Nina returns to the
place of her childhood and realizes one can go home again.
Readers see the relationship between Paul and Nina grow
stronger and see through Nina's eyes that she might have a
long-term future with him, something he wants very badly.
The story line has many twists and turns and it is only
when the novel reaches the court phase that readers have a
glimmer of what is really going on. Perri O'Shauqhnessy
will appeal to readers who love John Grisham. Harriet Klausner
Reviewed by PNR Group Member
Posted July 13, 2003
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New York Times bestselling author Perri O’Shaughnessy has garnered impressive acclaim for her tough, passionate thrillers set against the lush Lake Tahoe landscape and the world of one remarkable character: Attorney Nina Reilly. In this spellbinding new novel, O’Shaughnessy delves deeper into the heart and psyche of her popular heroine as Nina journeys back to her hometown to heal old wounds, and instead discovers that old secrets can be the deadliest kind.... Nina Reilly needs a fresh start. In three years, she’s taken on some of Lake Tahoe’s most controversial cases and has turned her struggling one-woman law firm into a thriving practice. Now she’s ready to sort out her complex relationship with her boyfriend, Monterey P.I. Paul van Wagoner. So she’s heading to the Carmel Valley, the place where she began her career and where her estranged father lives. It’s also a place of dramatic contradictions and hidden tensions, of new wealth and old families. And, within days of her arrival, Nina is already feeling the heat, as a case of arson exposes some of the darkest secrets of her hometown. Two suspicious fires have already raged through the valley this summer, igniting suspicions of arson. When a third blaze ends in a fatality, police zero in on a suspect: Wish, the son of Sandy Whitefeather, Nina’s ex-assistant. The dead man is identified as Wish’s childhood friend, a troubled local auto mechanic who hated the changes wealthy newcomers had brought to the valley. Nina and Paul are certain that there is more to this strange case than meets the eye. As they work together to clear Wish, new, more frightening questions are raised, and another fire is set. And out of the flames a terrifying picture emerges: a community steeped in secrets and rage, a tangled history between two men, and a killer whose motives are dark and wrenching. With the relentless page-turning suspense that has become her trademark, Perri O’Shaughnessy once again demonstrates her talent to enthrall. A haunting tale of crime and punishment, old grudges and second chances, Presumption of Death is suspense fiction at its finest--instantly compelling and utterly impossible to put down.
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