For most of the last hundred years, Biloxi was known for its beaches, resorts, and seafood industry. But it had a darker side. It was also notorious for corruption and vice, everything from gambling, prostitution, bootleg liquor, and drugs to contract killings. The vice was controlled by small cabal of mobsters, many of them rumored to be members of the Dixie Mafia. Keith Rudy and Hugh Malco grew up in Biloxi in the sixties and were childhood friends,...

In The Whistler, Lacy Stoltz investigated a corrupt judge who was taking millions in bribes from a crime syndicate. She put the criminals away, but only after being attacked and nearly killed. Three years later and approaching 40, she is tired of her work for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct and ready for a change. Then she meets a mysterious woman who is so frightened she uses a number of aliases. Jeri Crosby's father was murdered 20 years earlier,...

"For as long as Lucia Gomez has been the police chief in the city of Highland Isle, near Kindle County, she has known that any woman in law enforcement must walk a precarious line between authority and camaraderie to gain respect. She has maintained a spotless reputation--until now. Three male police officers have accused her of soliciting sex in exchange for promotions to higher ranks. With few people left who she can trust, Chief Gomez turns to...

Court-appointed lawyer Jake Brigance puts his career, his financial security, and the safety of his family on the line to defend a sixteen-year-old suspect who is accused of killing a local deputy and is facing the death penalty.

Natalie Greco loves being a law professor, even though she can't keep her students from cruising sex.com during class. When a colleague talks Nat into teaching a class at a local prison, her comfortable world turns upside. A violent prison riot breaks out, and in the chaos, Nat rushes to help an injured guard. Before he dies, he asks her to deliver a cryptic message. The dying declaration plunges Nat into a nightmare. Suddenly, the girl who has always...

When attorney Jack Newlin discovers his wife dead in their home, he's convinced he knows who killed her-and is equally determined to hide the truth. He decides to frame himself for murder, and to seal his fate he hires the most inexperienced lawyer he can find: a reluctant rookie by the name of Mary DiNunzio from the hot Philadelphia firm of Rosato & Associates. But hiring Mary may turn out to be his biggest mistake. She doubts Jack's confession,...

To reclaim his integrity, a corporate lawyer takes on an unwinnable case After years at the top of his game, Wyatt Matthews has hit rock bottom. Though his bank account is bursting and his law practice is thriving, Wyatt takes no joy in his work. Seeking meaning, he volunteers for six months as a public defender, where he finds that the legal system is an ugly place for those who can't afford top-notch help. In one of his first cases, he arranges...

Anne Murphy is the redheaded rookie at the Philadelphia law firm of Rosato & Associates, and one morning she wakes up to front-page headlines proclaiming lawyer murdered -- above her own picture. If she wants to stay alive, she's got to play dead. She'll have to trust people she barely knows -- colleagues who hate her, homicide cops who want her out of the crime-fighting business, and a new love who inconveniently happens to be opposing counsel. But...

Mary DiNunzio's teenage angst comes flooding back when her high school nemesis, Trish Gambone (dubbed "Trash" by Mary) comes seeking her help. It doesn't matter that Mary is now the rainmaker of Rosato & Associates. Trish's mere presence is enough to make Mary feel like she's at the bottom of the food chain. As it turns out, however, Trish's life has taken a horrifying turn. She is terrified of her live-in boyfriend, an abusive South Philly mobster,...

Sashi Burgette vanished three years ago on her way to school. The night after the teenager's disappearance, ex-con Dylan Kyle was stopped for drunk driving. An article of Sashi's clothing was found in his truck, and a police videotape of his drunken explanation under interrogation sealed his fate at trial. Now, just days from Kyle's execution, Sashi's mother visits Jack Swyteck, doing pro bono work at the Freedom Institute, and delivers shocking news:...