"Sizzling, Sexy Murder Mystery"

Kate Rochelle had it all. She is beautiful, has an incisive mind, a soul who loves justice and comes from a high-society pedigree background. Only problem, she has made lousy choices in boyfriends. An up and coming attorney in Palm Beach, Florida working for the U.S. Attorney General's Office, she made the first mistake falling for Harold Lowell. In his bid for the office, he accepts illegal campaign contributions. The second mistake she made -- in Harold's eyes as well as many of her co- workers -- she turned Harold in for committing the crime. This saw her fired. Now she is rebuilding her career in the private sector, forming a firm with her two friends Carling Dent and Nichole Sterling -- The Law Offices of Dent, Rochelle and Sterling -- and she is embarking on her first case. Only the stigma of her turning evidence, along with a long-ago mystery of the disappearance of her grandfather and grandmother -- with the grandfather a judge who supposedly took bribes -- Kate has a hard road ahead of her. Now she thinks of herself as a hired gun. When someone does you wrong, you cannot take the law into your own hands and have a shoot-out at high noon -- you hire her to be your 'gun'.

It's a case everyone wants Kate to turn down for different reasons. The first to approach her not to take the case is her Aunt Hilary. She is really Kate's great aunt but prefers to be called aunt because it makes her younger sounding. A woman, Grace Roberts -- assistant to her aunt - has been murdered. She was helping work on the restoration of the old court house when she was killed. Lloyd Sibler, the project coordination has been arrested for her murder, though Kate refuses to believe this. Lloyd is not the type to kill someone, especially when the reasons for the murder was Lloyd and Grace were having an affair. Kate knows Grace was planning a high-powdered, big-money engagement with a drop-dead gorgeous CEO and would not waste time own meek Lloyd. Next pressure comes from her uncle Colin. Colin insists Kate has never had a murder case before, and since this involves the death penalty, he believes Kate is putting Lloyd's life at risk. Then her godfather, in the running for the Supreme Court, approaches her about how the high profile case might adversely affect his chances. All this does is make Kate more stubbornly determined to see Lloyd gets a fair trial.

Suddenly, odd things are happening to Kate. A mugger mugs her trying to steal her briefcase, yet doesn't try to take her laptop. Then someone breaks in the room where Grace was killed. The very chambers where her Grandfather used when he was Judge and vanished from decades ago. Kate knows there is no such things as coincidences.

With sexy private detective Gabe Chavez at her side, Kate is lured deeper and deeper in the mystery of Grace's murder and the death of her Grandfather, which is somehow linked.

I loved Nora's Pride written by Stephenson for Silhouette Intimate Moments. It was a beautiful loving romance that left me eager for more from this writer. I am delighted to finally see another book by her and a marvelous one that catches you from the first page and doesn't let you down.

Kate and Gabe sizzle! You might want to wear ovenmits for this one. But it's Stephenson's legal background that adds so much to this story. She brings Kate alive with such rich detail. This is one you won't be able to put down from start to finish. It just doesn't get any better than this.

Reviewed by DeborahAnne MacGillivray
Posted June 24, 2005