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Sisters Pamela and Mary O'Shaugnessy, who comprise the author Perri O'Shaugnessy, would appear to have an unbeatable combination so far as writing legal thrillers goes. Pamela is a law graduate while Mary obtained a degree in English Literature. Their bibliography so far includes Motion to Suppress, Invasion of Privacy, Obstruction of Justice, Breach of Promise, Acts of Malice, Move to Strike, Writ of Execution, Unfit to Practice and the upcoming Presumption of Death. It is rather unfortunate - for me, at least - that despite a search I was unable to find any interviews with the creative duo since I would very much like to know just how they write and the sort of occurrences that have inspired the individual titles. Still, it was nice to find the web page, maintained by their children, which supplied the sparse information I duly gathered. The authors' protagonst is Nina Reilly, a sole lawyer in private practice in South Lake Tahoe. Nina is a very earnest, decent young woman, a single mum intent on doing the best for her clients as well as for her teenage son Bob. Nina, who has had several men in her past, is currently involved with her investigator, Paul van Wagoner, to whom she is able to turn for help on many levels with her cases. Nina is involved in a nasty custody case -- but how frequently are custody cases not nasty? She feels badly about it because, although she is acting for the father, she can see that the mother is just as caring as her client. She is also acting for a Hmong family , the Vangs, whose store had been razed by an arsonist or arsonists unknown to the police but possibly known to the victims. A third case is that of sisters who, when camping, feel they saw a murderer on the camp site where they were staying, someone other than the man identified as the killer. Nina is in the habit of making confidential, detailed notes of her cases and on one night takes all three sets of case notes home with her to be worked on there. The weather is bad and while she runs inside after locking her truck, she neglects to take the case notes with her. Feeling too tired to retrieve the notes later, Nina sleeps until morning when she attempts to remove the notes from her truck. To her horror, the truck has been stolen - and the case notes with it. Suddenly, everything goes wrong with Nina's professional life: she loses the custody case although had her case notes not been stolen she would probably have won it, the Vang family case finds her liable for fraud and the two sisters who witnessed an escaping murderer are in danger and blame Nina for their peril. Nina finds herself in court, accused of being unfit to practise law and having to battle to preserve her reputation. In her personal life she is trying to balance her own needs against those of her somewhat rebellious son who is intent on trying for his independence. There are several people Nina sees as her possible enemy responsible for the theft of her truck and using her notes against her: her policeman client who has lost custody of his children, possibly in collaboration with his former wife and her sleazy lawyer and a woman police officer who retrieved her truck - minus the case notes - who obviously hates the woman lawyer. To add to Nina's woes. she discovers the attorney Paul engages to act for her is her own former husband Jack. This is not a bad tale. It contains a fair bit of action as well as considerable danger. It provides insights into lawyers' minds as well as the minds of the police. It shows the 'other' side of professional people - for example, a judge whose judgment might be affected when he has to sit during what would normally be a rest hour. There is a good deal of posturing from the two adult males as each seeks to ingratiate himself into Nina's heart and bed while her capable Native American assistant, Sandy, together with her son Wish, provide staunch and loyal support. If there is a fault to be found with the book it is, in my opinion, the method of winding up the story. We know it is a series, with more to come, yet the composite author finishes it all too tidily. I feel it would have had more power were some things left deliberately dangling for the next narrative.
Reviewed by Denise Wels, August 2003
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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