But I Smile Anyway…

Something a bit different from me, today. I am on the blog tour for a Police Procedural/Crime Fiction novel by Robert Dugoni, Her Deadly Game

The Blurb

Keera Duggan was building a solid reputation as a Seattle prosecutor until her romantic relationship with a senior colleague ended badly. Now, returning to her family’s failing criminal defence law firm to work for her father is her only option. But with the right moves, maybe she can restore the family’s reputation, her relationship with her father, and her career.

Keera’s chance to establish herself comes when she’s retained by Vince LaRussa, an investment adviser accused of murdering his wealthy wife. There’s little hard evidence against him, but considering the couple’s impending and potentially nasty divorce, LaRussa faces life in prison. The prosecutor is equally challenging: Miller Ambrose, Keera’s former lover, is eager to destroy her in court on her first homicide defence. But as a competitive former chess prodigy, Keera is confident she can outmanoeuvre him.

As Keera and her team start digging, they uncover more than they bargained for. Keera is sure that LaRussa didn’t kill his wife, but she’s starting to suspect that he’s not an innocent man. With a duty to her client, her family’s legacy, and her own future to consider, she’s caught in a deadly game…

My Review

Her Deadly Game by Robert Dugoni
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I always say I’m not a crime fiction kind of gal, but then I pick up a book, like this one, part courtroom drama, part police procedural, with a whole load of family drama thrown in, and I find myself sucked in.
Her Deadly Game focuses on a lawyer, Keera, who, through no fault of her own, has to leave one job and go, tail between legs, to work with her father and sisters in their family law practice.
She becomes embroiled in one case that she ends up heading after being the after-hours lawyer on duty, which could make or break her.
A murder.
Someone with a motive, but many, many other aspects that don’t tie up, as well as an alcoholic father threatening to put the case in jeopardy and an ex who ends up causing her hell in the courtroom.
Keera’s old interest in playing chess also plays a part in the story. I’m not a chess player, so the different moves and names of pieces meant little to me, but I liked the parallel that was created between the tension in her working life and the online game she is playing.
All in all, I really enjoyed reading this. A definite page turner.

About the Author

Robert Dugoni is the critically acclaimed New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Amazon Charts bestselling author of the Tracy Crosswhite series, which has sold more than eight million books worldwide. He is also the author of the bestselling Charles Jenkins series; the bestselling David Sloane series; the stand-alone novels The 7th Canon, Damage Control, The World Played Chess, and The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell, Suspense Magazine’s 2018 Book of the Year, for which Dugoni won an AudioFile Earphones Award for narration; and the nonfiction exposé The Cyanide Canary, a Washington Post best book of the year. He is the recipient of the Nancy Pearl Book Award for fiction and a three-time winner of the Friends of Mystery Spotted Owl Award for best novel set in the Pacific Northwest. He is a two-time finalist for the Thriller Awards and the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction, as well as a finalist for the Silver Falchion Award for mystery and the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Awards. His books are sold in more than twenty-five countries and have been translated into more than two dozen languages.

Visit his website at www.robertdugonibooks.com