Perri O'Shaughnessy

#2

2002

Broken hearts. Broken promises. Deadly consequences.In glitzy Lake Tahoe, couples break up every day. But few are as successful as Lindy and Mike Markov, who built a $200-million business together--before Mike took up with a younger woman. Now he's claiming he doesn't owe Lindy a dime since they never married.Attorney Nina Reilly, struggling to make a living in her one-woman office and raise a young son alone, agrees to take Lindy's case. Nina knows winning is a long shot, even with a brilliant jury consultant and a palimony expert on her side. It's the kind of case--full of passion and explosive secrets--that could make a fortune for a young lawyer. Or drive someone to commit murder--for love, money . . . or the right verdict.New York Times bestselling author Perri O'Shaughnessy has created a wonderfully unique and unpredictable character in Nina Reilly, a tough, tenderhearted attorney and single mother who has been hailed by critics as "one of the most interesting heroines in legal thrillers today" (the San Jose Mercury News).

#3

2003

New York Times bestselling author Perri O'Shaughnessy has garnered impressive acclaim for her tough, passionate thrillers set against the lush Lake Tahoe landscape and the world of one remarkable character: Attorney Nina Reilly. In this spellbinding new novel, O'Shaughnessy delves deeper into the heart and psyche of her popular heroine as Nina journeys back to her hometown to heal old wounds, and instead discovers that old secrets can be the deadliest kind....Nina Reilly needs a fresh start. In three years, she's taken on some of Lake Tahoe's most controversial cases and has turned her struggling one-woman law firm into a thriving practice. Now she's ready to sort out her complex relationship with her boyfriend, Monterey P.I. Paul van Wagoner. So she's heading to the Carmel Valley, the place where she began her career and where her estranged father lives. It's also a place of dramatic contradictions and hidden tensions, of new wealth and old families. And, within days of her arrival, Nina is already feeling the heat, as a case of arson exposes some of the darkest secrets of her hometown. Two suspicious fires have already raged through the valley this summer, igniting suspicions of arson. When a third blaze ends in a fatality, police zero in on a suspect: Wish, the son of Sandy Whitefeather, Nina's ex-assistant. The dead man is identified as Wish's childhood friend, a troubled local auto mechanic who hated the changes wealthy newcomers had brought to the valley. Nina and Paul are certain that there is more to this strange case than meets the eye. As they work together to clear Wish, new, more frightening questions are raised, and another fire is set. And out of the flames a terrifying picture emerges: a community steeped in secrets and rage, a tangled history between two men, and a killer whose motives are dark and wrenching. With the relentless page-turning suspense that has become her trademark, Perri O'Shaughnessy once again demonstrates her talent to enthrall. A haunting tale of crime and punishment, old grudges and second chances, Presumption of Death is suspense fiction at its finest--instantly compelling and utterly impossible to put down.From the Hardcover edition.