In Her Defense

Frank O'Connell's need to live on the edge cost him his family, his home, and a partnership in his father-in-law's prestigious D.C. firm. Then Ashley Bronson walks into his life. The murder of a former cabinet official has just propelled her from the society column to the front page, and, inexplicably, she wants Frank to defend her. Frank thinks his biggest challenge is defending a client against the prosecution's overwhelming evidence. He's got a lot to learn. Subsumed in a defense in which ethics are bent and morals compromised, a desperate Frank hits upon an inspired strategy -- and unwittingly becomes a dangerous threat to people in high places -- a threat that must be stopped no matter what the cost. Confronted by forces they don't understand, besieged lawyer and client have only each other as the courtroom battle begins....

Stephen Horn was born in the Bronx, New York, and received an engineering degree from Rutgers University. He commanded an infantry company of the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam. As a prosecutor in the justice Department's Civil Rights Division, he tried criminal cases and participated in some of the department's most famous investigations, including the killing of four Kent State students by the Ohio National Guard and the assassination of Dr. martin Luther King Jr. Now in the private practice of law, he lives outside Washington, D.C., with his wife and two children. In Her Defense is his first novel.