Synopsis
It is a case designed to set St. Louis lawyer Rachel Gold's blood boiling and her passion for justice ablaze. Fellow attorney Sally Wade comes to Rachel hideously bruised, the victim of a brutal beating by the husband she is in the process of divorcing. Even worse, the husband is blue-blooded Neville McBride, a prominent member of the city's power elite, who can be sure of kid-glove treatment by the authorities. Will Rachel represent the battered wife in a lawsuit to separate Neville from some of his millions? Does the sun rise in the east? Rachel gets set to wreak legal vengeance with relish.
Before Rachel can write her first writ, however, this open-and-shut case of spousal abuse turns into an ever widening net of murderous intrigue. Sally is found slain, tied up in bed, and clues point to her husband. But though the husband is a prime police suspect, Rachel has mounting doubts about the guilt of this man she would love to hang.
Reviews
There's a lot of bad blood around and not all of it on the slaughterhouse floor when St. Louis trial attorney Rachel Gold wades into the rough and tumble world of kinky sex, meatpacking and high-priced attorneys in her fifth adventure (after Due Diligence). Personal-injury lawyer Sally Wade hires Gold to sue her almost ex-husband, Neville McBride, for assault, offering her black eye and bruises as evidence. A week later, Wade is found dead in a pose identical to one in a pornographic photograph discovered in McBride's apartment; McBride's only alibi is a mystery lover who failed to show up that night. But Gold is persuaded by McBride's defense lawyer, Jonathan Wolf, despite his abrasive style, that the woman who hired her could have been an impostor. Digging through Wade's records, Gold finds a passport for brief trips to Hong Kong, a stash of bonds and stocks, a list of people and payments not on her client list and a receipt for some photographs. Inspired by her martial arts class, Gold confronts two of Wade's chasers, i.e., men and women who cruise the highway for victims who might be potential clients, survives two death threats and gets a chilling look at what goes on inside a modern slaughterhouse. With the assistance of her secretary, Jacki Brand, in the fifth month of turning his linebacker body into something feminine, and law professor Benny Goldberg, who thinks unrelenting verbal sexual assault is funny, Gold digs deep into the surprising market for animal byproducts in an intricate, suspenseful story.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Sally Wade, Esq. (Sally Wade Associates), is already in the process of divorcing Neville McBride, Esq. (Tully, Crane & Leonard), when an unusual evening leads her to the office of Rachel Gold, Esq., to file a separate suit for assault and battery. She alleges that McBride, a longtime bondage enthusiast, used his old key to get into her place, beat her, and attempt rape; he maintains that he never had much interest in bondage, and, anyway, he was at his place that evening watching Monday Night Football. Sally's story gets a lot more convincing when the police find her spread-eagled, gagged, suffocated body decorated with a puddle of fluid that sure looks to the lab boys like McBride's. But McBride and his sleek defender, Jonathan Wolf, Esq., haven't given up. They offer to prove an alibi; they point out that Sally had never taken her injuries to the doctor, as Rachel had demanded; they ask (what gall!) whether Rachel's sure it was really Sally who came to her office in the first place. And this is only the beginning of an uproariously complex swindle involving every lawyer in St. Louis, a scam that will addle your brain in all the satisfying ways the killer's obvious identity won't. More sheer gall than you ever expected lifts Rachel's fifth case way above Due Diligence (1995) and up near the comic heights of Firm Ambitions (1994). -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Crusading lawyer Rachel Gold, previously seen in Death Benefits (Dutton, 1992) and Firm Ambitions (LJ 5/1/94), reappears to solve yet another mystery. This time, when one of her clients turns up dead, all signs point to the estranged husband, Neville. Neville's charming defense attorney is able to convince Rachel that the airtight case against him is a little too perfect, however, and Rachel sets out to find the truth. Much of the fun comes from novelist/trial lawyer Kahn's characters. Rachel's best friends are secretary Jacki (formerly Jack, a tall, heavily muscled ex-steelworker) and the obnoxious overeater Benny Goldberg, both introduced in earlier series titles. This lively cast of characters keeps the suspense moving and brings levity to the subjects of murder and deception. Recommended for popular collections.?Kathy Ingels Helmond, Indianapolis-Marion Cty. P.L., Ind.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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