Unlucky in Law (Nina Reilly Series #10) » (~)

Perri O'Shaughnessy is the pen name for sisters Mary and Pamela O’Shaughnessy, who both live in California. They are the authors of eleven bestselling Nina Reilly novels as well as a collection of short crime fiction, Sinister Shorts.

Nina Reilly takes on the most dangerous and difficult case of her career in New York Times bestselling author Perri O’Shaughnessy’s latest thriller. An ingenious blend of forensic science, history, and gripping suspense, Unlucky in Law pits the tough but compassionate attorney against the most unbeatable adversary of all: the law.

Nina has just received a last-minute call from her old boss and mentor in Monterey County, California, where she is enjoying the breathtaking scenery and spending time with her boyfriend, P.I. Paul van Wagoner. Klaus Pohlmann is in desperate straits and begs Nina to take over a seemingly unwinnable case: A luckless two-time felon named Stefan Wyatt has robbed a grave and made off with the long-buried bones of a Russian émigré. When he is caught and arrested, further devastating evidence found in the grave suggests that Stefan is guilty of a far more deadly crime.

A young woman, a classmate of Stefan’s, has been killed, and he is accused of her murder. Now, as a result of California’s Third Strike law, Wyatt is looking at twenty-five years to life whether he’s convicted of grand theft or murder. Either way, he’s in big trouble.
With her client’s blood DNA found in the dead woman’s apartment, Nina faces an uphill battle. Suspecting that her hapless client has been set up, Nina brings in a brilliant forensic pathologist who comes up with a startling theory about the case that could rewrite a crucial page of European history. As the evidence mounts against Nina’s client, Paul launches his own investigation into the shadowy past of the two-decades-old skeleton. But long-held secrets nearly get him killed and reveal a more insidious evil at work—and an extraordinary story dating back to tsarist Russia and the Romanov court. As Wyatt edges closer to the unluckiest verdict of his young life, Nina makes an astounding discovery that just might save her client—or expose a killer who could bury them all.

Brilliantly imagined and compulsively readable, Unlucky in Law is a beguiling mix of wrenching drama and gripping action. And it is Perri O’Shaughnessy’s most accomplished novel to date.

Publishers Weekly

In this 10th installment in O'Shaughnessy's series featuring spunky California lawyer Nina Reilly (Motion to Suppress; Invasion of Privacy), Nina has moved herself and 14-year-old son Bob from their usual Tahoe turf to the Monterey Peninsula to spend time with her lover, PI Paul van Wagoner. Paul has asked Nina to marry him, offering a big diamond to seal the deal. Nina puts him off while she prepares for a big trial: she's newly employed at Pohlmann, Cunningham, and Turk, and her first case, working with Klaus Pohlmann, is defending 28-year-old Stefan Wyatt, charged with murder and grave robbing. O'Shaughnessy has been accused of sloppy plotting in the past, but not so here. Russian migr Constantin Zhukovsky, dead more than 20 years, used to tell friends and family of being a young page to Czar Nicholas II. Now the deadly ramifications of these stories have rippled down to the present. As for the damning evidence that Stefan's blood was found at the scene of the murder? O'Shaughnessy comes up with the neatest solution to that classic puzzle in recent thriller memory. Agent, Nancy Yost. (July 13) Forecast: Readers of the legal ladies genre (some of whom thought O'Shaughnessy's last was not up to snuff) will judge this one a winner and buy appropriately. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.