Incriminating Evidence - Hardcover

Sheldon Siegel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0749905786 ISBN 13: 9780749905781

Publisher: Piatkus Books, 2001

Synopsis

With his terrific first novel, Special Circumstances, Sheldon Siegel delivered legal fiction so exciting, it drew comparisons with the very top tier of courtroom thrillers. Now he has a new challenge for defense attorney Mike Daley--ex-priest, ex-husband, ex-public defender--and it’s a high-profile zinger: a case he doesn’t think he can win for a client he can’t stand.

It starts with a phone call Mike Daley never expected to get, from District Attorney Prentice Marshall Gates III, San Francisco’s chief law enforcement officer and front-runner candidate for California attorney general. Friends they’re not, but Gates needs Daley now--badly. He’s just been arrested. A couple of hours earlier he woke up in his hotel room and found the dead body of a young male prostitute in the bed. Prosecutors are already talking the death penalty, and there’s nothing in the mounting evidence to convince Daley and his partner--and ex-wife--Rosie of Gates’s innocence. But even if he’s lying, it’s their job to defend him.

Sure enough, the deeper Mike and Rosie dig, the seamier their findings. From a shady Internet entrepreneur who trades flesh for cash to a prominent businessman who uses muscle to keep his enterprise prospering, Mike and Rosie chase down leads that take them from the depths of the Mission District, where drugs and bodies are always for sale, to the gated mansions of Pacific Heights, frantically trying to piece together the shocking truth of what actually happened, even as the trial itself is under way.

About this title

Review:

When the rich and ambitious Prentice Marshall "Skipper" Gates III, San Francisco's district attorney, is found in a hotel room with a dead male prostitute handcuffed to the bed, it looks like an open-and-shut murder case. Gates claims he fell asleep in front of the television and woke to find the body. But no one is buying this excuse, and the DA is brought up on murder charges by his own office, which plans to seek the death penalty.

Michael Daley (defense attorney, ex-priest, and ex-public defender) agrees to take the case, though he has no great affection for the accused. Gates has had his sights set on the attorney general's office, and in San Francisco's political community, it seems everyone has slept with, betrayed, or crushed everyone else. Perhaps Gates's assertion of a vast conspiracy is true. Still, Daley believes Gates is not telling the whole truth about the case. What is he hiding? Daley's search takes him from the elite neighborhoods of San Francisco to the seedy--and deadly--underworld of the Mission District's prostitutes and drug pushers, all the while carrying on a trial that's full of twists and turns. In this follow-up to to Special Circumstances, Sheldon Siegel proves that he's no one-shot wonder. The story is brilliantly plotted, the characters are sharp and believable, and the wit as dry and pointed as ever. This new series injects some much-needed life into a genre that had gone a little stale. --Perry M. Atterberry

From the Back Cover:

“Daley is an original and very appealing character in the overcrowded legal arena — a gentle soul who can fight hard when he has to, and a moral man who is repelled by the greed of many of his colleagues. ... starts with a bang.”
— Publishers Weekly

“An effective page-turner.... The trial procedure is fascinating and more believable than most, as Siegel concentrates on legal strategies instead of lawyer's egos.”
— Kirkus Reviews
Praise for Sheldon Siegel and Special Circumstances:

“A poignant, feisty tale ... Characters so finely drawn you can almost smell their fear and desperation. The dialogue is taut and tangy.”
— USA Today

“A page-turner of the finger-burning kind ... By the time the whole circus ends up in the courtroom, the hurtling plot threatens to rip paper cuts into readers’ hands.”
— San Francisco Chronicle

“With a winning protagonist and a gripping plot, Siegel’s debut is sure to make partner at its first-choice firm: the expanding empire of Turow, Grisham, Lescroart, Wilhelm, Margolin, and Baldacci.”
— Publishers Weekly

“It’s a hit!”
— Chicago Sun-Times

“A crackling good read.”
— Houston Chronicle

“All the hallmarks of a superb legal thriller are here.... [a] stellar debut.”
— Booklist

About this edition

• Publisher: Piatkus Books
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0749905786
• ISBN 13: 9780749905781
• Binding: Hardcover