Hardback: Sheldon Siegel made an immediate impact with his first two novels, Special Circumstances (2000) and Incriminating Evidence (2001), garnering high critical praise ("a page-turner of the finger-burning kind," said the San Francisco Chronicle) and leaping onto bestseller lists. Siegel has saved his best, however, for Criminal Intent (2002), a simmering stew of murder, graft, sex and high-stakes financial manipulation - and it is all in the family.
You can pick your friends, they say, but you cannot pick your family. And lately, Mike Daley's family has been keeping him very busy. An ex-priest, ex-public defender and ex-corporate lawyer, Daley and his former wife, Rosie Fernandez, run their own San Francisco criminal defense firm - they were not so good at being married, they discovered, but they are a pretty good legal team.
Most of their cases are fairly small-time, which is why it is surprising for the person accused of murdering movie director Richard (Big Dic) MacArthur to be calling them - except that the accused is Rosie's own niece Angelina.
That case is bad enough, but the family problems do not end there: Rosie's brother, Tony, may be on the wrong end of a strongarm graft proposal; the son of one of the firm's lawyers has just been busted on a drug charge; Mike is hafving a clandestine affair with a woman judge and Rosie herself has a dark secret that may make all of it seem irrelevant.
An intricate plot, immensely likeable characters, powerful suspense, and more than a touch of humour - these have already become Siegel's hallmarks, and Criminal Intent will keep the reader turning pages until its final, surprising end. If you have not read Sheldon Siegel yet, there is no better place to start.
Criminal Intent (2002) is the brilliant third instalment in the superb Mike Daley & Rosie Fernandez legal series set in San Francisco, USA.
About the author: Sheldon Siegel is a New York Times Bestselling novelist and author best known for his works of modern legal courtroom drama.
Siegel was born on the south side of Chicago, Illinois. He attended New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois, and later went on to attend the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as an Accounting major. He graduated with a Juris Doctor from Boalt Hall at the University of California, Berkeley in 1983. He has been in private practice in San Francisco, California for over twenty years and specializes in corporate and securities law with the law firm Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP.
His books have been translated into a dozen languages and sold millions of copies worldwide. He currently resides in Larkspur, California, with his wife, Linda, and twin sons, Alan and Stephen.
Rating: 5/5
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