nomadreader

The backstory: I thoroughly enjoyed Marcia Clark's prior mystery series, featuring Los Angeles prosecutor Rachel Knight: Guilt by Association , Guilt by Degrees , Killer Ambition , and The Competition . Blood Defense  is the first in a new series featuring Los Angeles defense attorney Samantha Brinkman. (It also signals a change in publishers for Clark.) And yes, as her Twitter handle says , she's that Marcia Clark, who is still most famous for prosecuting O.J. Simpson for murder. The basics: Blood Defense  introduces Samantha Brinkman, a defense attorney struggling to make a name for herself. She appears as a defense expert frequently on a new talk show, but her office is in the heart of gang territory, and she lacks high profile, paying clients. That changes when she takes the case of Dale, an LAPD detective charged in the double homicide of Chloe, a starlet and his girlfriend, and Paige, Chloe's roommate. My thoughts: The mystery at the heart of this novel is who kil...

The basics: Law of Attraction  introduces Anna Curtis, a driven, bright young lawyer whose dark family history in Michigan causes her to prosecute domestic violence crimes in D.C. My thoughts: I gravitate to mystery series about female lawyers written by female lawyers (see: Alafair Burke , Linda Fairstein , and Marcia Clark . I've read all of their books.) Like Anna, Leotta worked as a federal prosecutor handling domestic violence in D.C. Anna is new to her job, and the reader gets to learn about it along with her. She's also new to D.C., and I appreciated her realistically humble apartment and utter lack of work-life balance. I found Anna to be a particularly interesting character because she isn't perfect. She makes mistakes. She makes tough choices. She doubts herself in realistic ways rather than in annoying ones. She's flawed but still inspiring, and I found myself both rooting for her and wanting to be her friend. Law of Attraction  balances introducing and...

The basics: When Kate, a successful lawyer, gets a call during an important client meeting that her daughter has been suspended, she's in disbelief. By the time she arrives at the school to pick Amelia up, Amelia is dead, apparently from jumping off the school's roof. As more information emerges, however, it becomes clear all is not as it seems with Amelia. My thoughts: Billing  Reconstructing Amelia  as this year's Gone Girl , a marketing device I typically avoid, doesn't do this novel justice. While it does share some similarities with Gillian Flynn's blockbuster (my review), it reads like an utterly original mash-up of Gone Girl, Where'd You Go, Bernadette?  and Gossip Girl . The novel taps into a sense of "wait, what's real?" and immediately gives the reader the sense she doesn't know exactly what she should believe. In terms of plot, however, I was struck by the similarities to Maria Semple's divine comedy  Where'd You Go, Bernad...