Prey to All
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Barrister Trish Maguire has too much on her plate: not only is she swamped with work, but her father has just suffered a heart attack and he's not likely to pull through. The last thing Trish needs now is a seemingly unsolvable case, one closer to her heart than she ever would have thought possible. But inconvenience has never stopped this tenacious, young lawyer from taking on a case.
The woman Trish chooses to defend, Deb Gibbert, has been sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering her father. With almost no one on her side, not even her public defender, Deb cannot hope to see the light of day ever again. That is, unless she can convince someone like Trish of her innocence. But Trish needs no convincing-upon hearing Deb recount the details of the night her father died, Trish comes to believe that circumstantial evidence convicted this innocent daughter and mother of four. Staying up nights in the intensive care unit to watch over her unconscious father gives Trish time to reflect upon the case against her client. As Trish delves deeper into the case, doubts begin to cloud her judgment: perhaps Deb is a ruthless killer who deserves her sentence. But Trish's nerves are stretched to breaking point when one of Deb's only supporters is shot dead at his own front door. With an unflagging faith in equal justice, Trish finds herself face to face with several truths, each tantalizing her further into a giant hall of mirrors. Prey to All is as rich in compassion as it is in anger, and the interwoven subplots turn what seems a simple case into a test of faith.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Readers who persevere with this somewhat languid contemporary British mystery will find it picks up speed toward the end. Comely barrister Trish McGuire usually argues child abuse cases before the bar, but in this, the third novel in the McGuire series, she takes on a murder case at the urging of a friend, television producer Anna Grayling. Anna is convinced that Deb Gibbert should be retried after a guilty verdict jailed her with a life sentence. Anna is preparing a TV special she hopes will prove that Deb did not smother her bellicose, ill father. Who did do the old boy in? Was it Deb's long-suffering mother? Or Deb's "perfect" sister, Cordelia, who hated Deb enough to testify against her at the original trial? Did the overworked and undercaring country doctor make a mistake? Trish grudgingly takes on Deb's case, as she herself is not certain whether she believes the embittered woman is innocent. The police personnel on the case are DCI William Femur, who's had a run-in with Trish in the past, and his sergeant, Caroline Lyalt. They add their official methods to Trish's more informal attempts at investigation. On the home front, Deb's beleaguered spouse, Adam, and four childrenDheaded by teenage KateDmuddle on with their own lives and problems, not the least of which is having a gaol-bird for a wife and mother! Cooper cunningly weaves these plots together as the novel chases to its close in a stunning turnabout ending.