Joe Dillard
is a successful defense attorney in a small town in East Tennessee: successful
enough that he can be selective about which clients he represents. The cancer that previously attacked his wife
Caroline has returned and he cherishes any time spent with her. Then a client turns up he cannot refuse.
Paul Millius
is a wealthy Nashville record label owner who is accused of murdering his
eighteen year old protégée, Kasey Cartwright.
Kasey’s career as a country music singer was blossoming under Millius’s
direction. Then one night Paul and Kasey
are overheard having a heated discussion and Kasey’s body is found hours later
in her hotel room. When police learn
that Paul was the last person to see Kasey alive, he is arrested for her
murder. As rumors circulate about
Millius’s reputation as a womanizer, adulterer and ruthless businessman, the
court of public opinion finds him guilty.
Millius’s wife, Lana Raines-Millius reaches out to Dillard having learned
of his flawless reputation as a defense attorney. But Joe soon learns there’s no love in the
Millius’s marriage. Lana’s hope is for her
husband to be imprisoned for life or worse, be sentenced to death. Joe wonders if he was hired for his legal
skill or his country bumpkin stature.
As conspiracy
theories begin to emerge, Joe suspects Lana may be behind Kasey’s murder and
Paul may have been slated to die in that hotel room as well. Proving that may be Paul’s best defense and
the legal challenge of Joe’s life. Getting
the judge to allow evidence for his ‘some other dude done it’ defense requires
legal maneuvering. And collecting that
evidence proves extremely dangerous. Not
only is Joe’s reputation as a lawyer on the line but his life as well.
In A Crime of Passion Joe’s career as a
lawyer evolves to yet another level of disenchantment. In previous books he begins his career as a
defense attorney and grows tired of representing drug dealers, rapists and
murderers. He switches sides and becomes
a prosecutor only to find the dirty politics and lack of ethical standards of his
coworkers unbearable. He moves back to
the defense side, opens his own practice, and attempts to carefully choose his
clients but finds he can’t be too discriminating and still make a living. So the author presents an interesting but
popular view on the life of a lawyer.
Can our highly principled, squeaky clean protagonist survive in such a
corrupt environment? Personally, I can’t
wait for his next installment to see.
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