Reasonable Doubt » (Reissue)

Ex-federal prosecutor Michael Ryan has been estranged from his son Ned for three years when Ned is murdered, bludgeoned to death in the private room of a Soho art gallery. His daughter-in-law, wealthy socialite Jennifer Kneeland Ryan, has been indicted for the crime. Jennifer insists she's innocent and begs her father-in-law to defend her. Though Ryan wants to believe she's guilty, he can't turn her away. He takes the case. And as his ambivalence toward Jennifer intensifies, as the painful truth about his son's life begins to emerge, Ryan realizes that his own life is also on trial — as a father, as a lawyer, and as a man.

Publishers Weekly

Novelist-attorney Friedman ( Rage ) ably maps the baroque twists and turns of the legal system in this unlikely but entertaining hybrid of Rocky and Presumed Innocent . Hard-drinking former U.S. prosecutor Michael Ryan reluctantly agrees to defend his daughter-in-law, who is accused of battering to death his philandering son Ned after a high-pitched argument at a SoHo art gallery. Between skirmishes with his younger, hot-headed, female co-counsel, Ryan learns more than he wants to know about Ned's slimy business deals and all-too-open marriage. A minefield of damaging, suppressed facts explodes in the gritty courtroom scenes as Ryan slugs away at a headline-hungry district attorney in an attempt to settle old scores. The finale, however, is flat and disappointing. (Mar.)