Her deadly game

Keera Duggan, the protagonist of this twist-filled standalone from bestseller Dugoni (The Silent Sisters), works as a criminal defense attorney in her father's Seattle law firm. She was once a prosecutor, until she ended her romantic relationship with her supervisor, Miller Ambrose, because of his alcoholism, and he demoted her, leading to her departure. Keera now finds herself on the opposite side of the courtroom from Ambrose defending Vince LaRussa, the owner of a wealth-management and investment firm. A noted philanthropist, LaRussa is the prime suspect in the shooting murder of his wife. Despite an apparently solid alibi, the politically ambitious Ambrose charges LaRussa, setting up a high-stakes trial showdown. Keera, a well-developed and nuanced lead, has an additional complication to deal with: a stranger, who knows she's an accomplished chess player, emails her: "You're in the game of your life, so play like your life depends on it... because it very well might." Dugoni's own litigation experience is put to good use in trial scenes that feel true-to-life. John Grisham fans will be pleased. Agent: Meg Ruley, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (Mar.)

A Seattle attorney long overshadowed by her celebrated father lands her first murder case, and it's a dilly. When he's accused of shooting his wife, Anne, who was paralyzed years ago in a car accident, one night during a rare Seattle heat wave, wealth manager Vincent LaRussa wants Patrick Duggan, the Irish Brawler, to defend him. But Patrick isn't available because he's passed out drunk again. So Vincent has to settle for Keera Duggan, an ex-prosecutor who's an associate of Patrick Duggan & Associates. What Keera lacks in experience she makes up in finely honed killer instincts. She's an accomplished chess player who's internalized a great deal of her father's sage advice as she's done her best to steer away from his most self-destructive habits. She'll need every edge she can get over prosecutor Miller Ambrose, the ex-boss and ex-lover who's trying the case. Oncologist Lisa Bennet, Anne's best friend, swears that Anne was alive when she left her that evening, and security cameras on the high-end property showed no other arrivals before Anne's husband, who turns out to have 100 million motives for murder. A mysterious correspondent calling himself Jack Worthing begins feeding Keera clues, and one of them leads to an explosive bit of potentially exculpatory evidence the prosecution has failed to share with her, inspiring a courtroom video demonstration that marries Erle Stanley Gardner to John Dickson Carr. So why is it that, as the courtroom back-and-forth plays out, Keera can't escape the feeling that she's being played by an opponent savvier than her? Fast-paced legal-intrigue gold that could be improved only by kicking off a new series. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.