A criminal defense : a legal thriller / William L. Myers, Jr.

Wow, what a book! I
don’t usually delay my normal activities because of a novel, but this was an
exception. After I was partway through,
I just had to keep reading to the conclusion.
And as the title notes, it’s a thriller; in fact, as the events unfold, expect
the unexpected! The downsides to the
novel IMHO are the melodramatic or soap-opera portions of the book, but these
happen more toward the beginning of the story and they diminish as the action
heats up.

From Publisher’s weekly review: “Defense attorney and former DA Mick
McFarland, the narrator of lawyer Myers's impressive debut, takes on the case
of a close law school friend, David Hanson, the general counsel of a
family-owned Fortune 500 company. David has been arrested for pushing Jennifer
Yamura, an up-and-coming Philadelphia reporter who just broke a major police
corruption story, down the stairs to her basement, where she was found lying
dead. An anonymous phone call alerted the police, who picked up David fleeing
from the victim's house. That it appears to be an open-and-shut case isn't
Mick's only problem. Devin Walker, the prosecutor, is pursuing a conviction
largely because he and Mick were archrivals and enemies back in Mick's days as
a DA. Glimpses of Mick's puzzling and intense relationship with his ex-convict
brother, as well as rifts in Mick's marriage, provide counterpoint to the
fascinating legal maneuvering in the courtroom. The gripping plot builds to an
ending that's a complete shocker.”