British barrister Trish Maguire is keeping a deathwatch at the bedside of her father, from whom she's long been estranged, when an old friend prevails on her to help Deborah Gibbert, a woman accused of suffocating her own ailing father. Even her own family believe Deb killed her father, a difficult man whose death by "natural causes" was successfully challenged by Deb's sister and led to a guilty verdict against her. Trish's own conflicts with her father inform her efforts on Deb's behalf; so does Deb's long friendship with an M.P. whose motives for helping her case are murky, to say the least.

This relatively bloodless psychological thriller is short on suspense but somewhat longer on character development. Trish is a complex woman whose sense of obligation to her family and friends, as well as her clients, often results in the kind of intrapsychic conflicts that make for interesting reading but detract from the pace of the narrative and do little to ratchet up the dramatic tension. This is her third appearance in an otherwise unremarkable series that will appeal mostly to those interested in the arcane workings of the English legal system. --Jane Adams


From Publishers Weekly
Readers who persevere with this somewhat languid contemporary British mystery will find it picks up speed toward the end. Comely barrister Trish McGuire usually argues child abuse cases before the bar, but in this, the third novel in the McGuire series, she takes on a murder case at the urging of a friend, television producer Anna Grayling. Anna is convinced that Deb Gibbert should be retried after a guilty verdict jailed her with a life sentence. Anna is preparing a TV special she hopes will prove that Deb did not smother her bellicose, ill father. Who did do the old boy in? Was it Deb's long-suffering mother? Or Deb's "perfect" sister, Cordelia, who hated Deb enough to testify against her at the original trial? Did the overworked and undercaring country doctor make a mistake? Trish grudgingly takes on Deb's case, as she herself is not certain whether she believes the embittered woman is innocent. The police personnel on the case are DCI William Femur, who's had a run-in with Trish in the past, and his sergeant, Caroline Lyalt. They add their official methods to Trish's more informal attempts at investigation. On the home front, Deb's beleaguered spouse, Adam, and four childrenDheaded by teenage KateDmuddle on with their own lives and problems, not the least of which is having a gaol-bird for a wife and mother! Cooper cunningly weaves these plots together as the novel chases to its close in a stunning turnabout ending. (Dec. 14) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Barrister Trish Maguire has too much on her plate: not only is she swamped with work, but her father has just suffered a heart attack and he's not likely to pull through. The last thing Trish needs now is a seemingly unsolvable case, one closer to her heart than she ever would have thought possible. But inconvenience has never stopped this tenacious, young lawyer from taking on a case.

The woman Trish chooses to defend, Deb Gibbert, has been sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering her father. With almost no one on her side, not even her public defender, Deb cannot hope to see the light of day ever again. That is, unless she can convince someone like Trish of her innocence. But Trish needs no convincing-upon hearing Deb recount the details of the night her father died, Trish comes to believe that circumstantial evidence convicted this innocent daughter and mother of four. Staying up nights in the intensive care unit to watch over her unconscious father gives Trish time to reflect upon the case against her client. As Trish delves deeper into the case, doubts begin to cloud her judgment: perhaps Deb is a ruthless killer who deserves her sentence. But Trish's nerves are stretched to breaking point when one of Deb's only supporters is shot dead at his own front door. With an unflagging faith in equal justice, Trish finds herself face to face with several truths, each tantalizing her further into a giant hall of mirrors.

Author Biography: NATASHA COOPER is Chairman of the Crime Writers' Association and reviews books for several newspapers and journals in London. The author of the Willow King mystery series, she lives in England. Prey to All is her tenth crime novel.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Readers who persevere with this somewhat languid contemporary British mystery will find it picks up speed toward the end. Comely barrister Trish McGuire usually argues child abuse cases before the bar, but in this, the third novel in the McGuire series, she takes on a murder case at the urging of a friend, television producer Anna Grayling. Anna is convinced that Deb Gibbert should be retried after a guilty verdict jailed her with a life sentence. Anna is preparing a TV special she hopes will prove that Deb did not smother her bellicose, ill father. Who did do the old boy in? Was it Deb's long-suffering mother? Or Deb's "perfect" sister, Cordelia, who hated Deb enough to testify against her at the original trial? Did the overworked and undercaring country doctor make a mistake? Trish grudgingly takes on Deb's case, as she herself is not certain whether she believes the embittered woman is innocent. The police personnel on the case are DCI William Femur, who's had a run-in with Trish in the past, and his sergeant, Caroline Lyalt. They add their official methods to Trish's more informal attempts at investigation. On the home front, Deb's beleaguered spouse, Adam, and four childrenDheaded by teenage KateDmuddle on with their own lives and problems, not the least of which is having a gaol-bird for a wife and mother! Cooper cunningly weaves these plots together as the novel chases to its close in a stunning turnabout ending. (Dec. 14) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

In her third venture, barrister Trish Maguire looks into a case of murder-by-suffocation, unable to believe a woman killed her own abusive-but-sick father. As in her "Willow King" series, Cooper shows her mastery of psychological depth and skillful plotting. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Trish Maguire's never had much to do with her dad, who abandoned her and her mum years ago and is now in the hospital fighting off the effects of a coronary. But that's no reason why Trish, a family-law barrister, shouldn't research the case of Deborah Gilbert, imprisoned for suffocating her own irascible dad, for Anna Grayling, a producer planning a sort of tabloid documentary she hopes will end with an accusatory finale fingering a different murderer. Touched by Deborah, believing in her, Trish visits her husband and four children and discovers that Kate, the oldest child, bears a striking resemblance to M.P. Malcolm Chaze, a virulently anti-drug politician who is soon shot dead on his doorstep in Pimlico. Sorting through two deaths, Trish crosses paths with Chief Inspector Femur, a man on the edge of burnout, as they interview Chaze's unloving wife, his cowed secretary, and young Kate, and reassess the damning evidence produced by Deborah's sister and the family doctor at her trial, as well as the obviously false confession offered up by her mother. Three deeply unsatisfactory marriages will come under scrutiny and force Trish to study her wavering commitment to her live-in lover George before an arcane interaction of substances and a long-grieving mum surface to resolve the two stories. An intense heroine grapples with stifling distrust and verbal and physical spousal abuse, all in that polite, understated British manner. Like Trish's first case (Creeping Ivy, 1998): cool, literate, and just a bit twisty.