Books


Blood Flag
  • Published: May 17, 2016
  • ISBN: 978-0062328960

In this enthralling installment in the New York Times bestselling series, attorney Paul Madriani is drawn into a treacherous conspiracy dating back to World War II when his client is accused of murdering her father.

When Emma Brauer is blamed in the “mercy killing” of her aged father, Robert Brauer, Paul Madriani and his partner Harry Hinds step in to defend her. Insisting she’s innocent, Emma tells Madriani about a package sent to her father shortly before he entered the hospital. Bequeathed to him by a fellow soldier from World War II, the box contains only a key and a slip of paper. Emma fears that this package is connected to her father’s death, and that the real killer still poses a threat.

When Madriani’s beautiful young legal assistant is murdered during a routine errand in the case, he is blindsided by the realization that Emma’s fears are well-grounded. Driven by the need to find the killer, Madriani digs into Robert Brauer’s military history.   He discovers that other members of Robert’s Army unit have also recently died—under suspicious circumstances.

Trying to make sense of the box sent to Brauer, Madriani uncovers a trail leading to a mysterious talisman—a feared Nazi relic known as the “Blood Flag.” Soaked in the blood of a fallen Nazi follower, Hitler had displayed the flag in ceremonies until it went missing at the end of the war, turning it into a historic prize sought by collectors and others with darker motives. Racing to locate the artifact before it falls into the wrong hands, Madriani is in for the fight of his life.

In one of his most perilous cases yet, with Emma’s life on the line and his own safety in jeopardy, Madriani must uncover the truth before more people die in the struggle over the Blood Flag and its horrific legacy.

The Enemy Inside
  • Published: 05.12.15
  • Genre: Suspense
  • ISBN: 978-0062328939

Defending an innocent young man, defense attorney Paul Madriani uncovers a morass of corruption and greed that leads to the highest levels of political power in this electrifying tale of suspense from New York Times bestselling author Steve Martini.

One of the most successful lawyers in the country, Olinda Serna is a master at managing money as well as her influential clients. After years of fierce combat in the political trenches, Serna knows all the dirty secrets, where the bodies are buried, and how deeply they are stacked. When she’s killed in a roadside crash in the high desert of Southern California, powerful heads in Washington begin to panic, worried that their secrets may not be safe anymore.

Alex Ives, a friend of Paul Madriani’s daughter, is accused of vehicular manslaughter in Serna’s death. Ives claims he had only one drink on the night of the accident, yet he can’t remember anything between the time he left for a party north of San Diego and the moment he woke up in a hospital the next morning. He’s still dazed and a little bruised, but also obviously very afraid. After all, a woman is dead, and he’s sure he didn’t kill her.

To save an innocent young man’s life, the brilliant defense attorney must uncover everything he can about Serna and her clients—no matter how unsavory—a search that will lead him into a vortex of corruption, and at its center, a devious killer poised to strike again.

The Second Man
  • Published: 04.14.15
  • Genre: Suspense

In this riveting new novel in the New York Times bestselling series, defense attorney Paul Madriani uncovers a morass of double-dealing and murder that leads him to the very highest levels of American political power.

Guardian of Lies
  • Published: 7.14.09
  • Genre: Suspense
  • ISBN: 978-0061230905

Defense attorney Paul Madriani gets caught in a web of deceit and murder involving Cold War secrets, a rare coin dealer who once worked for the CIA, and a furious assassin in one of the most entertaining novels yet in this New York Times bestselling series.

A woman pauses in the hallway of a darkened San Diego beach house at night—listening for just the right moment when she can flee before her companion notices that she’s gone.

A man outside watches the same mansion, waiting for a sign that he can enter on his mission of blood and carnage.

So begins this riveting new tale about Paul Madriani and his latest case—that of Katia, a woman accused of an unlikely crime—a trial that will unravel a careful but horrifying conspiracy. Madriani soon realizes that he’s signed onto something much more sinister than a botched heist. As he searches for the truth that will clear Katia’s name, he finds himself on a path that takes him from Southern California to Costa Rica, and, ultimately, to a secret buried since Castro’s rise to power.

Together with his partner, Harry Hinds, Madriani must piece together the threads of a decades-old conspiracy involving priceless gold coins, an aging American spy, a disaffected Russian soldier, and a forgotten weapon from the days of JFK and the Cuban Missile Crisis. As the separate strands of the story come together, Madriani finds information that will ultimately lead him to the one person who holds the key to it all: a man some call “The Guardian of Lies.”

In this fascinating thriller from New York Times bestselling author Steve Martini, Paul Madriani faces his most challenging—and most urgent—case yet, a breathless story that combines fact and fiction and will hold readers captive until its final, explosive conclusion.

TRACYREADERDAD BOOK REVIEW

REBECCA’S READS (by Narayan Radhakrishnan)

JOE’S VIEW (by Joe Meyers)

DESERET NEWS BOOK REVIEWS (by Kari Morandi)

REVIEWJOURNAL.COM (by Mark Davis, Las Vegas Review-Journal)

PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY:
Paul Madriani’s chance encounter with 26-year-old Katia Solaz, a Costa Rican beauty, leads to a desperate race to avoid not only personal disaster but also a national one in Martini’s sprawling 10th thriller to feature the Southern California defense attorney (after Shadow of Power ). Katia, who’s living with creepy Emerson Pike, a man old enough to be her grandfather, in a dilapidated estate surrounded by an expensive security fence, decides to return home to Costa Rica. In her flight, she just misses running into the legendary assassin known as the Mexecutioner, who sneaks into Pike’s house. The naïve Katia and well-meaning Madriani, who meet in a grocery store, provide a welcome human element amid the busy action involving escaped Guantánamo prisoners, a Colombian rebel base, a Mexican drug cartel and a plot to bring the war home to the Great Satan via a nuclear device. Tidbits like how the FBI can use cellphones as remote bugging devices add to the fun.

WICHITA FALLS TIMES RECORD NEWS (by Sharon Galligar Chance)
A gorgeous Costa Rican girl is wooed by a wealthy older American man, and she assumes it’s because of her youth and beauty. Little does she realize that it’s not her looks that appeals to him, but her family connections. And that could prove deadly for a lot of people.

Steve Martini, the master of suspense thrillers, delivers an action-packed tale of murder and deceit in his latest Paul Madriani novel, “Guardian of Lies.” Katia Solaz has been brought to the United States by Emerson Pike, a renowned coin collector. But her visit turns odd when Emerson becomes enthralled with a series of photographs found on her camera. Holding Katia in relative captivity, the old man scrutinizes the six photos that Katia’s mother had taken in Columbia. What was so fascinating about those photos? And why was he so insistent that Katia remain by his side?

When at last she’s had enough, Katia steals a few of Emerson’s coins and flees the beachside mansion-turned prison. When she is caught a few hours later, she is arrested not for theft but for the murder of Emerson Pike. She remembers meeting a lawyer during a recent hurried grocery shopping trip, and asks that he be called to represent her.

Paul Madriani is surprised, but flattered, to be called to the aid of the beautiful girl he met while she was shopping for plantains. But when he can’t come up with an alibi as to his whereabouts the night of Pike’s murder, Madriani switches into overdrive to find out why Pike was killed, and Katia’s connection to it.

Mix in a bunch of escaped Guantanomo detainees, a drug cartel, an aging Soviet warrior, and an assassin called The Mexicutioner, and you have a thrilling rollercoaster ride through the jungles of Columbia and into the halls of American justice. Add in an ancient missing weapon of mass destruction from the Cuban Missile Crisis days, and it becomes explosive! (sorry!!!) Normally, I’m not into “manly” books such as Martini’s, but I found “Guardian of Lies” absolutely riveting. His characters are interesting, the story flows well from one situation to the next without confusing the reader, and you don’t know how it all will end until…well, the end.

Rule of Nine
  • Published: 6.1.10
  • Genre: Suspense
  • ISBN: 0061930210

The Old Weatherman dreams of a plan that could be his swan song, an attack to drive a stake through the heart of the right-wing establishment and bury it for good. Now he’s found the money, the ideal weapon, and the professional who knows how to use it. And he has set his sights on the perfect target at the very seat of the United States government, in the heart of downtown Washington. It will be a strike heard round the world.

San Diego defense attorney Paul Madriani is still reeling from the trauma of a near nuclear explosion he helped avert at the naval base in Coronado. Threatened by federal authorities to keep quiet about the close call in California, Madriani is now faced with a new problem in the steely-eyed and alluring Joselyn Cole, a weapons control expert, who believes he has to go public with what he knows if they have any hope of stopping a similar event in the future.

But Madriani has been linked to the murder of a Washington, D.C., political staffer, and authorities believe a shadowy figure called Liquida—a hired assassin known as “the Mexicutioner”—may be responsible. And this man, as the last survivor of the attack in San Diego, might be driven by a bizarre and horrifying star-crossed vendetta, and might now be looking for Madriani himself. What Madriani and Cole begin to fear is that the Old Weatherman and this madman have joined forces and intend to pull the city—and the country—into a vortex of terror before Madriani and Cole can find answers to the enigma that is “the rule of nine.”

Trader of Secrets
  • Published: 5.31.11
  • Genre: Suspense
  • ISBN: 0061930237

Defense attorney Paul Madriani is embroiled in a case as perilous as any he has ever faced: one that involves an angry killer who will stop at nothing short of vengeance, and two missing NASA scientists who are holding secrets that a hostile government desperately wants to purchase—in blood if they must.

Madriani’s daughter, Sarah, has evaded the man known as Liquida, who has stalked her all the way across the country. For her own safety, she is being kept under armed guard on a farm in Ohio. But one morning, itching for a predawn run to shake off the tension that has grown in the hours she’s spent waiting for word from her father, Sarah slips from her ring of protection. What she doesn’t know is that at the same moment her assailant is outside, waiting patiently in the dark.

Meanwhile in California, two men in a parked car argue over millions in cash that could be slipping through their fingers and a scheme involving government technology for sale that could rock the world. Paul Madriani, his companion Joselyn Cole, and his longtime law partner, Harry Hinds, track Liquida, not knowing that their quest will carry them deep into the vortex of international terror.It is a journey that will lead them toward a bizarre and cruel twist of nature—and the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. From the nation’s capital to California, from Bangkok to Paris and the jungles of Mexico, Madriani and his party race against time to find Liquida and the scientist who is the “trader of secrets” before he can unleash the weapon that could set the world ablaze.

Shadow of Power
  • Published: 5.27.08
  • Genre: Suspense
  • ISBN: 978-0061230882

The Supreme Court is one of our most sacred – and secretive – public institutions. But sometime secrets can lead to cover-ups with very deadly consequences.

Terry Scarborough is a firebrand. He’s also a controversial law professor whose new book, Perpetual Slaves, presents evidence that the roots of slavery are still deeply imbedded in the U.S. Constitution. Scarborough has cunningly created a media-frenzy, and his book is rocketing up the bestseller lists, while fueling unrest nationwide. In the midst of his highly-charged book tour, Scarborough announces that he is about to unveil an even greater and more damaging controversy: a previously unpublished letter written by Thomas Jefferson (the “J Letter”) that portends some deep secret about slavery at the nation’s founding. But on the day he’s to appear on national television to tell the world of this damning document, he is found beaten to death in a San Diego hotel room and a young man with unsavory connections is arrested for his murder.

As a favor to the young man’s father, Paul Madriani takes the case—even though it looks like an open-and-shut conviction. Madriani, a brilliant defense lawyer, begins by pulling out all the stops to get the truth out of his young client—especially why, as an employee of the hotel and perhaps the last person to see Scarborough alive, he ran from the murder scene instead of reporting it to someone. Factoring in the man’s admitted radical beliefs and an alleged plot to kidnap Scarborough, Madriani’s faced with the near-impossible task of keeping the kid off of death row.

Traveling far and wide to talk to Scarborough’s friends, Madriani thinks he’s chasing blind leads – with no potential subpoenas in sight. But he doggedly pursues references to the J Letter, and uncovers a mysterious connection between this explosive historical document, Scarborough, and a sitting U.S. Supreme Court justice. Madriani suspects that the letter is at the heart of the murder and he won’t let anyone stand in his way of uncovering how one of the nation’s top judges could be involved.

Madriani carefully treads a dangerous path through a complex legal minefield in one of the most politically and racially charged cases in U.S. history. Desperate to uncover the truth, he must hunt down the Jefferson document and risk exposing a high court justice without bringing more turmoil to an already uneasy public. But when Madriani discovers the astonishing facts behind the letter, the case breaks wide open and he must race against time to save his client’s life.

SHADOW OF POWER not only explores a dark chapter of our nation’s past but also its profound impact on today’s highly charged, politicized society. Filled with a cast of unforgettable characters and thrilling courtroom battles, SHADOW OF POWER will surely sit proudly among the masterworks of America’s most popular fiction.

Double Tap
  • Published: 7.26.05
  • Genre: Suspense
  • ISBN: 978-0399150920

Attorney Paul Madriani defends a highly decorated soldier on trial for murder and unwittingly steps into a maze of secrets and lies that the United States government – and possibly even his client – would rather leave hidden and undisturbed.

In his new outing, Madriani is faced with daunting ballistics evidence, a so-called “double tap” – two bullet wounds tightly grouped to the victim’s head, shots that could only have been made by a crack marksman.  Madriani’s client, Emiliano Ruiz, is an enigma, a career soldier who refuses to talk about his past though clearly he is a battle-tested pro.  Ruiz is accused of killing a beautiful businesswoman and guru of a high tech software empire catering to the military.

One key to the case that’s especially damning for Madriani’s client:  the murder weapon is one used only in special operations where the “double tap” has become the signature of the most skilled assassins.

Ruiz is sitting on a story he says he’s not at liberty to tell – a seven-year-gap on his military resume for which Madriani can find no details.  And more troubling, Madriani discovers that the victim and her company were involved in a controversial government computer program designed to combat terrorists.  Madriani finds himself in a deadly legal quagmire – with a client who refuses to help and prosecutors who stonewall every question about the victim’s shadowy business and his client’s past.  Finding justice and the unvarnished truth has never been so elusive – or so dangerous.

The Arraignment
  • Published: 1.06.03
  • Genre: Suspense
  • ISBN: 978-0399148781

A brilliantly suspenseful new Paul Madriani legal thriller.

“Lean, speedy and packing a wallop of a plot twist,” was Publishers Weekly’s verdict of Steve Martini’s THE JURY. “Martini remains one of the form’s most popular practitioner.” Now Martini has crafted yet another legal nail-biter in THE ARRAIGNMENT, featuring perennial favorite Paul Madriani.

After a lawyer-friend is killed along with his client in a hail of gunfire outside the federal courthouse in San Diego, attorney Paul Madriani takes on another client who Paul believes is involved at the edges of the double murder. He takes the case not to defend the man, but to find out who killed his friend and why. Paul is tortured by questions of conflict, his duty to a client who may have killed his friend and the need to know the truth, wondering whether he himself had been marked for death only to have a friend die in his place. Paul finds himself with a window into places he never wanted to go, drawn into a vortex of crime that spans the Americas.

As he searches for the killer, Paul rides the crest of a dangerous wave involving international drug deals and the people who murder for money. Suddenly he realizes it is not heroin or cocaine that resulted in the murder of his friend, but a priceless piece of pre-Columbian art, something so dazzling in the information it holds as to be one of the treasures of the ages.
In a quest that takes Paul from California to Mexico and the Guatemalan border, he discovers that while the motive to kill may be driven by distant, exotic and ancient artifacts, the killer, like a serpent, lies much closer at hand.

The Jury
  • Published: 6.25.01
  • Genre: Suspense
  • ISBN: 978-0399146725

“Lawyer Paul Madriani is called upon to defend a brilliant research physician – who just may be a killer – in this riveting new novel by the best-selling author of The Attorney….Madriani has ample reason to suspect he’s representing a guilty man. Dr. David Crone, a respected medical researcher and principal in mapping the human genome, is charged with the murder of a young colleague: twenty-six-year-old Kalista Jordan, an African-American research physician whose body washed up on a beach in San Diego Bay.

Forensic evidence links her murder with material in Crone’s garage. Crone had both opportunity and motive: Kalista had recently ended their affair, and may have been deserting him professionally as well, moving on to a rival genetic research facility. However, when a key witness for the prosecution dies unexpectedly, leaving an incriminating note behind, Crone’s innocence seems confirmed – until Madriani hits upon a potentially damning loose end.”

The Attorney
  • Published: 1.10.00
  • Genre: Suspense
  • ISBN: 978-0399145360

Paul Madriani is back in an absorbing new legal thriller by the New York Times bestselling author of The Judge and Undue Influence.

“Riveting …a suspenseful tale, right up to the satisfying climax,” wrote Publishers Weekly in praise of The Judge. “Legal thrillers don’t get much better than this.” Kirkus Reviews hailed Undue Influence as “the courtroom novel of the year.” Now Martini delivers Paul Madriani’s most challenging case yet.

Having moved to San Diego to be closer to the woman in his life, Madriani takes on the case of Jonah Hale, an elderly man in dire straits. As a result of their only child Jessica’s longtime drug addiction, Jonah and his wife have been raising their eight-year-old granddaughter, Amanda. On the heels of Jonah’s multimillion-dollar state lottery win, Jessica revives her interest in mothering. When Jonah won’t deal — maternal rights for a mega bucks payoff — Jessica pulls out all the stops.

Enter Zo Suade — a flamboyant, feminist activist with a talent for making children and their “victimized” mothers disappear. When the next move turns deadly, Madriani finds himself drawn into a web of deceit and high stakes action , in and out of the courtroom.

Rich with characters drawn from today’s headlines, driven by motives both obvious and subtle, The Attorney marks the much-anticipated return of Paul Madriani.

Critical Mass
  • Published: 9.21.98
  • Genre: Suspense
  • ISBN: 978-0399143625

The United States is fat and happy – and on the eve of the deadliest act of mass terrorism in history. From the embers of Oklahoma City comes the specter of Critical Mass.

Jocelyn “Joss” Cole, a burned-out public defender from L.A., has opted for a quieter life in the San Juan Islands of Washington State. Joss has no significant clients other than a group of commercial fishermen suffering from a strange and serious illness, a condition doctors cannot diagnose, which Joss believes has an industrial cause Then into her office comes Dean Belden, a well-heeled client in search of a lawyer to help him set up a business in the islands. Within days Belden is subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury. Before he can testify, and before Joss can discover what happened in the secrecy of the grand jury room, Belden dies in the fiery explosion of his floatplane on Seattle’s Lake Union.

Gideon Van Ry is a nuclear fission expert and a scholar in residence at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California. One of his duties is to update the Center’s database, an extensive catalogue of fissionable materials and weapons of mass destruction. Gideon is troubled by the apparent failure in accounting for two small tactical nuclear devices missing from a storage facility in the former Soviet Union. The weapons were last seen in packing crates awaiting shipment to an American company, Belden Electronics. Gideon has been unable to locate this firm, and now he is left with only one possible lead, the lawyer who incorporated the company – Jocelyn Cole.

Fraught with tension and suspense, Critical Mass is Steve Martini at his electrifying best. It is the story of what can happen in a world where private hate and public apathy combine to uncork the sleeping but deadly genie of nuclear terror. Martini weaves a story based on today’s fears and tomorrow’s headlines, riveting in its realism, genuine in its characters.

The List
  • Published: 2.10.97
  • Genre: Suspense
  • ISBN: 978-0399142611

A bold and successful scheme to outwit the biggest players in publishing and film animates this novel by the bestselling author of The Judge – a suspenseful thriller in which the price of fame becomes terror. Gable Cooper has penned a novel to kill for. Six million dollars in book and film rights are looming just off the table for this unknown author.
But there is a problem: Gable Cooper doesn’t exist.

Abby Chandlis is an attorney turned novelist and the creator of Gable Cooper. In an age when glamour, not grammar, is often the secret to selling books, Abby has an intriguing plan to keep her writing career alive: find a charismatic male face to pose as the phantom author for the knock-dead thriller she has written.

Jack Jermaine is a man with dangerous good looks and a shadowy past. Trained by the military to kill, his obsession is to pen a blockbuster book. He has a trunk filled with rejected manuscripts and a gnawing problem that has turned him bitter: Jack can’t write.

Desperate to find a man to play the role of Gable Cooper, Abby is about to give up when Jack forces his way into her life. Reluctantly she is convinced that Jack’s humor and looks will clinch success for her novel. She uses her legal wits and makes a deal with the devil. Jack becomes Gable Cooper.

When Jack is propelled into the orbit of celebrity, Abby finds herself at once seduced and trapped by her own creation. Success turns to terror. The story careens from the Pacific Northwest to New York City and finally through the islands of the Caribbean as Abby races for her life to the one person she can trust – the one person who can prove to the world that she wrote the novel, and put an end to the nightmare that was once her dream, the dream of making The List.

The Judge
  • Published: 1.3.96
  • Genre: Suspense
  • ISBN: 978-0399140433

“Steve Martini rides his books as if they are surfboards. A helluva trip,” said Newsday about the New York Times best-seller Undue Influence, the book Kirkus Reviews called the “courtroom novel of the year.” Now, with The Judge, Martini returns to give his readers another edge-of-the-seat ride.

Steve Martini’s explosive new thriller finds attorney Paul Madriani the unlikely defense lawyer for an old nemesis. Judge Armando “the Coconut” Acosta is arrested on charges of soliciting prostitution in a sting operation of “johns,” and few, including Paul Madriani, who has a long history of enmity with the judge, are sympathetic. Abandoned by his friends on the Capital County bench, Acosta is forced, in an ironic twist, to ask Paul to save his career from impending doom. Paul initially rejects Acosta’s pleas, but when Acosta’s original defense lawyer is forced off the case by a zealous district attorney looking for revenge, Paul is required to step forward and defend the judge.

As the case proceeds, the young female deputy reserve officer who snared the judge is found brutally murdered, and Acosta is the prime suspect. The reason? The officer was the only person who could give evidence against the judge. With his client now charged with murder, Paul faces the most daunting, disturbing, and complex case of his career.

Packed with the nonstop drama and richly drawn characters that have come to be Steve Martini’s trademarks, The Judge delivers a decisive thumbs-up verdict.

Undue Influence
  • Published: 7.6.94
  • Genre: Suspense
  • ISBN: 978-0399139321

With almost four million copies of his novels in print, Steve Martini has quickly joined the front ranks of psychological thriller writers, an author who John Grisham says “writes with the agile episodic style of a lawyer quick on his feet.”

In Undue Influence, Paul Madriani, the brilliant defense attorney readers came to admire in the New York Times best-sellers Compelling Evidence and Prime Witness, finds himself in a complex web of murder and deceit – this time within his own family. Paul’s wife, Nikki, has died of cancer, leaving him alone to bring up their young daughter, Sarah. On her deathbed, Nikki asked a favor of Paul: that he look after her younger sister, Laurel Vega, who is mired in a bitter child-custody battle with her former husband, a powerful state legislator. The two Vegas have brawled in open court for weeks, locking horns over who will be awarded custody of their two teenage children.

When Jack Vega’s new, younger wife is found slain execution-style in their opulent home, Laurel Vega becomes a prime suspect. And when physical evidence closes the loop, she is arrested and charged with first-degree murder. Paul, remembering his promise to his wife, has no choice but to take her case.

As he scrambles to mount a defense, Madriani investigates every angle of the murder, and uncovers more than a few skeletons in the Vega family closet. He unearths a dark and enigmatic side of Laurel, an aspect he never knew existed, and with this discovery comes the most chilling question of all: Did Laurel Vega commit murder?

Steve Martini holds the reader in his grip on every page of Undue Influence, with spiraling twists and turns, right down to the stunning, unexpected conclusion.

Compelling Evidence
  • Published: 2.01.92
  • Genre: Suspense
  • ISBN: 978-0399137129

In Compelling Evidence, Paul Madriani, a brilliant criminal defense attorney, was once a promising associate on the rise with Potter, Skarpellos, a prestigious law firm specializing in the defense of “compromised” executives. One of its cofounders is Ben Potter, Paul’s mentor, whose faultless reputation has earned him a probable nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In the aftermath of an affair with Ben Potter’s wife, Paul left the firm and took up a self-imposed exile in a small solo practice. He must scramble for work amid the ghosts of his doomed affair while struggling to hold together the remains of a failing marriage.

On the eve of the nomination, Potter is found dead, a shotgun by his body, an apparent suicide. As details come to light in the police investigation, the case turns from suicide to murder and the needle of suspicion begins to point toward the victim’s wife, Talia Potter. Indicted and arrested for murder, snared in a web of intrigue as her husband’s associates plot for control of the firm, Talia turns to Paul, her former lover, to defend her against the mounting evidence to be presented by the politically ambitious chief prosecutor who is bent on sending her to the gas chamber.

Here is a courtroom drama of epic proportions. Never before has a trial been presented in a novel in such riveting and uncompromising detail. With courtroom scenes as sharp as the crack of a gavel, Compelling Evidence is as close as any reader is likely to come to the legal maneuvering and psychological trauma of a death penalty case. Mesmerizing in its pace, captivating in its action, this is a story that holds the reader to its final verdict and shocking conclusion.

The Simeon Chamber
  • Published: 10.11.88
  • Genre: Suspense
  • ISBN: 978-1556111037

San Francisco lawyer Samuel J. Bogardus has no way of knowing that the seemingly routine adoption case steered to him by his dottering mother is about to ensnare him in a web of intrigue, black-market art and murder spanning four centuries.

The beautiful and alluring client, Jennifer Davies, has handed Bogardus a package containing a cryptic note. James Spencer, Jennifer’s natural father, believed killed years before in a freak aviation accident, is alive, and Bogardus will need all of his investigative and legal skills to locate him. But inside the envelope Sam finds an even more intriguing message, for attached to the note are four pages of ancient parchment bearing an elegant but faded script and signature penned in a bold hand; the name – “FRANCIS DRAKE.”

Bogardus shares the discovery with his former lover and law partner, the sensuous, magnetic and headstrong Susan Paterson. Unaware of the terrible cost to be exacted for this indiscretion, Bogardus’s curiosity soon turns to vengeance. The vendetta is not cooled by confirmation that the parchments are authentic, part of a journal written by the English Explorer in the 16th Century, and by a bizarre twist of fate delivered to an unknown American buyer by Nazi war profiteers.

Pursuing a trail of murder, Bogardus uncovers a mystery buried in the text of the four pages, a secret committed to paper by Drake on his departure from the western shores of North America 350 years before. As Sam and Jennifer track the killer through a tangled web of deceit, they uncover the remnants of an elaborate black market art scheme – a conspiracy so perfidious that it numbers among its victims the publishing mogul and collector – William Randolph Hearst.

The Simeon Chamber spirals in a suspense-filled course from the gilded rooms of Hearst’s San Simeon Castle to the craggy cliffs of California’s north coast. It is a quest for a king’s ransom in lost antiquities and revenge which winds its way from the precipice of suspense to a spine-chilling and shocking conclusion.