There's nothing hard-edged or particularly profound about Jonnie Jacobs's series of mysteries starring California lawyer Kali O'Brien, but--like good TV movies--the plots are convincing, the characters colorful, and the writing smooth and competent. The author's latest finds O'Brien handling a trial in her hometown in the Sierra foothills for a lawyer friend, Nina Barrett, who is five months pregnant and just diagnosed as having Hodgkin's disease.

When Nina's husband, Grady--a handsome and successful businessman with a history of sexual conquests--is accused of rape by a blowsy woman he met at a party, Kali very reluctantly agrees to defend him. She is virtually certain that the swaggering Barrett is guilty, and resents his betrayal of her sick friend. But as the investigation and trial proceed, Kali gradually begins to believe his claims of innocence--especially when two people die in suspicious circumstances. Jacobs succeeds in catching and holding readers' interest by setting up her characters as generic and then proceeding to fill in the relevant details that make them unique. Other Kali O'Brien books in paperback are Evidence of Guilt and Shadow of Doubt. --Dick Adler


From Kirkus Reviews
In the middle of launching a public offering of ComTech, his graphics chip company, Grady Barrett runs into a streak of rotten luck. His wife Nina, six months pregnant, has been diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, which can't even be treated till after a caesarian. Deirdre Nichols, the beauty salon receptionist he picks up at a bar, accuses him of rape, and he won't even consider his lawyer Kali O'Brien's consensual-sex defense. Then suddenly the charge is withdrawnbut only because the complainant is dead, fallen from her balcony window. Or pushed, say the Oakland police, who claim they can place Grady's Mercedes convertible at the scene, courtesy of a statement by Deirdre's seven-year-old daughter. Calling on Hal Fisher, a gay investigator she's worked with before, Kali rolls up her sleeves in preparation for the trial. Once again, though, Grady is adamant about running his own defense. He can't spend six months to a year away from his sick wife and his little girl while he waits for the case to come to trial; Kali will have to do everything she can to get the charge thrown out at the preliminary hearing, even though nobody's been able to pull off that trick since Perry Mason. Jacobs is still too lightweight to run with her big sisters in the legal-intrigue genre; there's nothing of Nancy Taylor Rosenberg's sense of menace or Lisa Scottoline's powers of invention on display here. Instead, Kali's third case (Evidence of Guilt, 1997, etc.) is a whodunitand the best-turned puzzle of Jacobs's six novels to date. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Scrupulous San Francisco defense attorney Kali O'Brien knows how to play the odds in a system where reality can be shaded. Despite a passion for justice that doesn't allow for compromise, her newest case is casting doubt on the one principle she cherished most: the absolute dead certainty that her client is telling the truth. Grady Barrett, a wealthy computer magnate married to Kali's best friend, has been arraigned in the rape of Deirdre Nicholas. Even if the sex was consensual, that doesn't acquit him, in Kali's eyes, of an indiscretion that has shattered his marriage, and further eroded his dubious reputation as a man of principle. Especially in the shadow of Deirdre's vivid, emotional, and thoroughly convincing deposition - damning testimony that Barrett maintains is a clever and manipulative web of lies spun to trap him. Despite his pleas of innocence, Kali's instincts tell her that Barrett may be as guilty as sin. Then Deirdre plunges to her death from a second-story balcony. A tragic accident? Or cold-blooded murder? Now, bound to a client she is afraid to trust, Kali finds herself straddling the razor-sharp line between crime and punishment. It isn't long before she finds her own life in jeopardy as a veil of lies is lifted, and the pasts of everyone from victim to victimizer, from illicit lover to faithless friend, unfold with their own provocative surprises.

FROM THE CRITICS

Kirkus Reviews

In the middle of launching a public offering of ComTech, his graphics chip company, Grady Barrett runs into a streak of rotten luck. His wife Nina, six months pregnant, has been diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, which can't even be treated till after a caesarian. Deirdre Nichols, the beauty salon receptionist he picks up at a bar, accuses him of rape, and he won't even consider his lawyer Kali O'Brien's consensual-sex defense. Then suddenly the charge is withdrawn-but only because the complainant is dead, fallen from her balcony window. Or pushed, say the Oakland police, who claim they can place Grady's Mercedes convertible at the scene, courtesy of a statement by Deirdre's seven-year-old daughter. Calling on Hal Fisher, a gay investigator she's worked with before, Kali rolls up her sleeves in preparation for the trial. Once again, though, Grady is adamant about running his own defense. He can't spend six months to a year away from his sick wife and his little girl while he waits for the case to come to trial; Kali will have to do everything she can to get the charge thrown out at the preliminary hearing, even though nobody's been able to pull off that trick since Perry Mason. Jacobs is still too lightweight to run with her big sisters in the legal-intrigue genre; there's nothing of Nancy Taylor Rosenberg's sense of menace or Lisa Scottoline's powers of invention on display here. Instead, Kali's third case (Evidence of Guilt, 1997, etc.) is a whodunit-and the best-turned puzzle of Jacobs's six novels to date. (Author tour) .