Christopher Paget is a trial lawyer with a famous past: as a young investigator in Washington he unearthed a scandal that brought ruin to the President - and an abrupt end to his affair with journalist Mary Carelli. Now, fifteen years later, Carelli is a famous TV journalist in New York and Paget is leading a relatively tranquil life raising their son in San Francisco. Until a charge of murder changes everything. The victim - a world famous (and infamous) novelist. The accused - Mary Carelli. When Paget agrees to defend her, largely for the sake of their son, her claims of attempted rape and self-defence seem water-tight. But gradually secrets from her past come to light and Paget is suddenly facing an explosive mix of public trial and personal conflict leaving his own and his son's fates vulnerable and exposed.
There’s a blurb on the front of this book that says it’s “compulsively readable”. That’s no lie. Every time I picked up this book, I had a hard time putting it back down again. It is chocked full of conflicted characters, chief of them all being Christopher Paget. From the very beginning, you’re never quite sure what exactly happened, and even at the end you continue to wonder… Was that the truth? Is Mary Carelli capable of telling the truth? And is knowing the truth always important?
It turns out that this is the second book in a series of four, but it stand very well by itself. It does have a great deal to do with the previous book, but all of the pertinent events were re-explained. This is only the second book by Richard North Patterson that I’ve read, and I don’t know how he’s escaped my notice for so long. Excellent, excellent read.
