Synopses & Reviews
Just when attorney Willa Jansson is about to take a little time off from her job at a Son Francisco multimedia firm, a friend calls in a special favor. So, on her first day of what should have been her well-earned vacation, Willa's off to Santa Cruz to solve what she hopes will be a simple case of vehicular manslaughter and felony hit-and-run. But Willa is about to discover that nothing about this case -- or the town where it occurred -- is quite as it seems.
Alan Miller's sports car went over an embankment and onto the coastal highway below, landing atop another car and killing its driver. But there are no tire tracks, no witnesses, and Miller's injuries aren't consistent with a car crash. Unable to recall where he was just after the accident, Miller's memory is jogged under hypnosis -- a recollection so far-fetched that Willa knows it will never stand up in court. All of a sudden, seemingly idyllic Santa Cruz is rife with dangerous secrets, and Willa must outrun helicopters, snipers, reporters, her own interfering mother -- and try to maintain her credibility and her career by making the jury buy her client's out-of-this-world alibi. If she can just keep the witnesses alive long enough to testify....
Review
Cleveland Plain Dealer Lia Matera writes brilliantly.
Review
San Jose Mercury News (CA) Santa Cruz writer Lia Matera has proved more than once that she is the master when it comes to dabbling in Northern California flakiness for her mystery plots....She cleverly walks the line here between milking the material for humor and taking it...seriously. She teases....Mystery fans...can't fail to be entertained...."
Review
Library Journal Matera offers a fast-paced narrative stuffed with incident and characters....Informative and funny....
About the Author
Lia Matera is a graduate of Hastings College of the Law, where she
was editor in chief of the Constitutional Law Quarterly. She was
also a Teaching Fellow at Stanford Law School before becoming a full-time
writer of legal mysteries. Prior Convictions and A Radical
Departure were nominated for Edgar Allan Poe awards. The Good
Fight and Where Lawyers Fear to Tread were nominated for Anthony
and Macavity Awards. She has written nine novels, including the critically
acclaimed Face Value. Matera lives in Santa Cruz, California.