Dreams of the Dead (Nina Reilly)

Description

Perri O’Shaughnessy “will keep you turning pages into the night,” applauds USA Today, in praise of the celebrated novels of suspense starring the audacious yet all-too-human defense attorney Nina Reilly. Now, in a spellbinding new thriller, O’Shaughnessy plunges Nina back into the center of a murderous family game, and reawakens a very real nightmare she had every reason to believe was dead . . . and buried.

A mix of slick and seamy, South Lake Tahoe, California, is the perfect setting for adventurers, criminals—and lawyers. In addition to coping with her demanding, sometimes creepy, clients, Nina Reilly is dealing with prickly personal issues involving her sixteen-year-old son Bob, his estranged father, and her investigator, confidante, and sometimes lover Paul van Wagoner. Then, in walks disaster. The millionaire owner of a Tahoe ski resort, Philip Strong is the father of Jim Strong, a sociopath who devastated many innocent lives, including Nina’s. Two years earlier, she had to defend Jim against charges of murder. He shattered her life, then vanished. Paul van Wagoner made sure of it.

Now in negotiations to sell his ski resort, Philip has received a letter purportedly from his fugitive son in extradition-free Brazil, demanding his share of the profits. Philip is convinced it’s authentic. Nina’s certain it’s a con, but to prove that means exposing the secrets of someone very close to her. Then two local women are brutally murdered. Nina begins to question their links to her new client, and the truth about Jim Strong’s sudden disappearance. As Nina’s worst fears flood back, with time running out, she’s about to discover that the dreams of the dead can still destroy the living.

With its breakneck pace, pulsing human drama, and serpentine twists, Dreams of the Dead establishes once again why Perri O’Shaughnessy has been hailed as “a master of the legal thriller” (Vincent Bugliosi).

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Show No Fear: A Nina Reilly Novel

Description

A brand-new Nina Reilly thriller takes readers back to Nina's first murder investigation, to the case that ignites her passionate commitment to fighting for justice. As a single mom working as a paralegal and attending law school at night, Nina has her hands full fighting for custody of her young son Bob and overseeing a medical malpractice lawsuit on behalf of her mother. But when a woman falls to her death off a bridge near Big Sur and witnesses disappear, Nina suspects there is more to the "accident" than the authorities are saying. With the help of homicide cop Paul van Wagoner, she rushes to uncover the truth. Show No Fear illumines what makes the brilliant Nina Reilly tick -- and, in this fascinating prequel to an illustrious career, begins a love affair for her fans and readers of complex, gripping thrillers everywhere!

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Unlucky in Law (Nina Reilly)

Description

Nina Reilly takes on the most dangerous and difficult case of her career in New York Times bestselling author Perri O’Shaughnessy’s latest thriller. An ingenious blend of forensic science, history, and gripping suspense, Unlucky in Law pits the tough but compassionate attorney against the most unbeatable adversary of all: the law.

Nina has just received a last-minute call from her old boss and mentor in Monterey County, California, where she is enjoying the breathtaking scenery and spending time with her boyfriend, P.I. Paul van Wagoner. Klaus Pohlmann is in desperate straits and begs Nina to take over a seemingly unwinnable case: A luckless two-time felon named Stefan Wyatt has robbed a grave and made off with the long-buried bones of a Russian émigré. When he is caught and arrested, further devastating evidence found in the grave suggests that Stefan is guilty of a far more deadly crime.

A young woman, a classmate of Stefan’s, has been killed, and he is accused of her murder. Now, as a result of California’s Third Strike law, Wyatt is looking at twenty-five years to life whether he’s convicted of grand theft or murder. Either way, he’s in big trouble.
With her client’s blood DNA found in the dead woman’s apartment, Nina faces an uphill battle. Suspecting that her hapless client has been set up, Nina brings in a brilliant forensic pathologist who comes up with a startling theory about the case that could rewrite a crucial page of European history. As the evidence mounts against Nina’s client, Paul launches his own investigation into the shadowy past of the two-decades-old skeleton. But long-held secrets nearly get him killed and reveal a more insidious evil at work—and an extraordinary story dating back to tsarist Russia and the Romanov court. As Wyatt edges closer to the unluckiest verdict of his young life, Nina makes an astounding discovery that just might save her client—or expose a killer who could bury them all.

Brilliantly imagined and compulsively readable, Unlucky in Law is a beguiling mix of wrenching drama and gripping action. And it is Perri O’Shaughnessy’s most accomplished novel to date.


From the Hardcover edition.

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Case of Lies (Nina Reilly)

Description

No one writes legal suspense like Perri O’Shaughnessy. Blending powerful human drama with legal thrills, mystery, humor, and unforgettable characters, the New York Times bestselling author has created a uniquely entertaining series of novels centered around lawyer and single mother Nina Reilly. Now, in a masterful new novel, Nina’s investigation into an unsolved murder takes her on a dark journey strewn with old crimes, bitter truths, and heart-stopping danger.

For Nina Reilly, the mountain town of Lake Tahoe is home. It’s where she forged a successful career as a tough, resourceful attorney–and raised her teenage son, Bob, alone. Back from a stint in Monterey, where her love life took a tumble, Nina has returned to her Tahoe law office with her old friends Sandy Whitefeather and Sandy’s son, Wish. It isn’t long before she has a new client whose wife was shot and killed during a casino-district robbery two years before. The police have no suspects, and the robbery victims, three students, lied about their identities and are hiding outside California and the reach of the court.Two of the witnesses have fled to a village not far from the home of Bob’s father, Kurt Scott, in Germany. As Nina tries to unravel the mystery of one violent Tahoe night, a harrowing journey begins–one that takes her from the dark underworld of Tahoe’s casinos to the halls of a prestigious East Coast university to Europe and an emotional reunion with Kurt.

As old feelings are rekindled, Nina’s case turns violent. Everyone has something to hide–the brilliant but unstable mathematics student who has made an astonishing discovery, the owner of a motel where the shooting took place, and the shooter, who has turned the whole case into a gigantic lie.

Filled with all the rich drama, stunning surprises, and ingenious twists we have come to expect from this incomparable storyteller, Case of Lies will grab you from the very first page and never let you go as it speeds to its incredible conclusion.

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Obstruction of Justice

Description

Lightning strikes twice.

Two people have died in Lake Tahoe in shocking accidents.  In a nearly empty parking lot, a hit-and-run driver kills probation officer Anna Meade Hallowell.  High up on a jagged mountain, wife abuser Ray de Beers gets what he deserves: he's struck by lightning.  Attorney Nina Reilly, hiking on a rare day off from her one-woman law practice, sees him die.  So does her date, Tahoe deputy DA Collier Hallowell.  Still shaken from his wife's violent death, Hallowell is hit hard by the accident.  It's a bad end to a first date...  and the start of a case that will test Nina's ethics and her heart.

Nina is certain de Beers's death is an act of God.  But his aging father wants to exhume the body to rule out foul play.  De Beers's frantic wife and teenage twins hire Nina to stop the disinterment.  What gets unearthed are secrets that raise new questions about Anna Hallowell's death, an indictment against one twin for murder, and a damning piece of evidence that can convict the boy .  .  .  unless Nina obstructs justice by hiding it.  No good lawyer will take that kind of risk.  But a brilliant lawyer, one with a passion for truth, just might .  .  .  .

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Motion to Suppress

Description

Returning from her late shift as a barmaid at a casino in Lake Tahoe, Misty Patterson struck her violently jealous husband in self-defense. She admits that--but did she kill him? She says she can't remember. Like so many times before, Misty blacked out and the rest of the evening is a blank. Now her husband has disappeared, leaving behind a trail of blood, and she's the number-one murder suspect with no one to turn to for help.

San Francisco attorney Nina Reilly is also on the run—from a bad marriage and a worse career setback. Relocated to Lake Tahoe, Nina is resolved to recover her spirit, give her young son a secure home, and build up a small solo practice. But, when Misty Patterson walks in the door, a blond Barbie doll of a cocktail waitress accused of murder, it triggers a harrowing series of events that will change both women's lives forever.

Common sense says Misty is lying. To win this case Nina will have to trust her own instincts, diving headlong into the dark convolutions of the human mind. This murder case—teeming with sinister secrets, unspoken betrayals, and jolting revelations—is going to change everything Nina Reilly believes about the law. It's going to rock everything Misty believes about herself. And if they can learn to trust each other, it's going to give both women their one and only chance to reclaim their shattered lives.

In a spellbinding novel that doesn't let go from the first page until the shocking unforgettable conclusion, Perri O'Shaughnessy delivers an electrifying legal thriller about two women risking all they have for the truth that could cost them their lives—or set them both free.

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