Keera Duggan has had her fill of being pushed around. She had to leave her promising job in the Seattle prosecutor’s office because her one-time romantic interest couldn’t take no for an answer She’s now reluctantly taken her legal skills to Patrick Duggan & Associates, a move she swore she’d never make. Patrick is her alcoholic father and the associates are Keera and her long-suffering sisters.
As the newbie, Keera’s paying her dues on small-time cases until the last straw: her father is too drunk for court and she must step in. So, when a big case comes up on a night when she’s on phone duty, she grabs it and verbally elbows her family out of the way the next day. An ultra-rich money manager is accused of killing his wife, a disabled woman (she uses a wheelchair and is unfortunately described throughout the book as “confined” to it). She couldn’t have killed herself, even though she’s found at home alone, shot in the head, with a gun beside her. The only possibility seems a SODDI defense (some other dude did it).
Then Keera, a skilled chess player, gets an email from a stranger warning her that, “You’re in the game of your life, so play like your life depends on it.” As well as following an entire game of chess, move by move, that Keera plays with an online opponent, readers will eagerly follow the wonderfully obstinate Keera as she refuses to let up on this case even as the obstacles, puzzles, and twists keep coming. Dugoni’s afterword explains that legal thrillers are his roots, and with the intricate plotting and winning characterization here, readers will be glad he returned to them.
