A âsmart and spellbindingâ legal thriller âputs you right in the . . . lives of lawyers caught up in a high-stakes murder trialâ (Douglas Preston, New York Timesâbestselling coauthor of The Monster of Florence and Gideonâs Sword).
On the morning his high-profile divorce trial is set to begin, Terrance Wyler, the youngest son of Torontoâs Wyler Food dynasty, is found stabbed to death in the kitchen of his luxurious home. Detective Ari Greene arrives minutes before the press and finds Wylerâs four-year-old son asleep upstairs. Hours later, when Wylerâs wife, Samantha, shows up at her lawyerâs office with a bloody knife wrapped in a towel, the case looks like a straightforward guilty plea.
Instead, an open-and-shut case becomes a complex murder trial, full of spite and uncertainty. Thereâs April Goodling, the Hollywood starlet with whom Terrance had a well-publicized dalliance, and Brandon Legacy, the teenage neighbor who was with Samantha the night of the murder. After a series of devastating cross-examinations, thereâs no telling where the juryâs sympathies will lie.
As in his debut Old City Hall, Rotenbergâs gift for twists and turns is always astonishing, but his true star remains the courtroom: the tension, disclosures, and machinations that drive this trial straight to its unpredictable verdict.
Praise for Robert Rotenberg
âA few lawyers are really expert in managing casesâespecially criminal casesâin the courtroom. A small percentage of these are very good at making trials come alive. Robert Rotenberg is one of the few, along with Scott Turow, David Baldacci, and John Lescroart. The Guilty Plea is a crackling good read.â âF. Lee Bailey
âRobert Rotenberg does for Toronto what Ian Rankin does for Edinburgh.â âJeffery Deaver, author of Edge