Masterful storytelling ... gripping legal drama ... relentless suspense -- these are the hallmarks of Perri O'Shaughnessy's work. Critics hail her legal thrillers as "terrific ... will keep you turning the pages into the night" (USA Today) and "a real puzzler ... with twists diabolical enough to take to court" (The New York Times Book Review). Now the New York Times bestselling author of Move to Strike returns with Writ of Execution, an electrifying tale that plunges attorney Nina Reilly into a shadowy world of high-stakes money and cold-blooded murder. In the mountain resort town of South Lake Tahoe, Nina Reilly is known for taking on the underdog cases, the kind that can make -- or break -- her one-woman law practice. Her latest case begins in the middle of a summer night when she is called away from a very personal visit to her investigator Paul van Wagoner's hotel room to meet with a desperate new client at her office who gives her name as Jessie Potter. The frightened young woman has just hit a huge slot machine jackpot, and the men in suits are waiting to hand her the check just as soon as she tells them her real identity. With time running out, Nina helps her client devise a brilliant plan to collect the money while keeping her true identity a secret. Unfortunately, powerful interests have lined up to grab the money. The gaming commission thinks the jackpot was rigged. The man sitting on the seat just before the jackpot hit says it's his, and he doesn't mind going outside the law to get it. And the wealthy man stalking Nina's client has retained an unscrupulous local lawyer, Jeff Riesner, to attack the jackpot winnings using a legal maneuver called a Writ of Execution. The odds of Jessie ever collecting are starting to look hopeless. For Nina, what began as a fight for an underdog in federal court soon escalates into something very different and far more dangerous. Jessie has a secret, and she needs that money for a very good reason. By the time Nina discovers that Jessie is withholding vital information, it might be too late for her client and even for Nina herself. Because somewhere in the darkening Tahoe night, people are dying. A cold-blooded, obsessed killer will stop at nothing -- including execution-style murder -- to get that jackpot in a case where the Writ of Execution has become more than a legal maneuver; it's a death warrant. Sweeping from the glittering casinos of Tahoe to the drama of a packed courtroom to the darkness of a woman's secret past, Writ of Execution is spellbinding entertainment -- Perri O'Shaughnessy's most intricate and compelling novel to date.

Writ of Execution

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Perri O'Shaughnessy

Mystery

DELACORTE PRESS

Unfit to Practice

Literature & Fiction

Dell

Move to Strike

Judy Piatkus

Writ Of Execution

Unlucky in Law

In California, if a person is convicted of two serious crimes and is then found guilty of any subsequent crime, he or she is automatically subject to a prison sentence of twenty-five years to life. This is called the Third Strike law. Nina Reilly's new case is difficult from the start: her young client is facing his Third Strike, and stands accused of grave robbing...and of killing the fresh corpse found on top of the coffin. He insists he is innocent of both crimes, and claims he was hired to dig up the grave of Constantin Zhukovsky, who, according to his headstone, was once 'Page to the Tsar'. But who is Zhukovsky, and could he possibly have a connection to the Russian royal family, murdered during the revolution? The sudden disappearance of his bones causes further problems for Nina, and her client's denial is on shaky ground when the murder victim turns out to be one of his classmates. With her client remaining tight-lipped about why he was at Zhukovsky's grave and evidence piling up against him, Nina's got a tough battle ahead - one that stretches from the law courts and classrooms of modern-day California, to the intrigues of the Russian Revolution...

Contemporary

Piatkus Paperback

New York Times bestselling author Perri O’Shaughnessy has garnered impressive acclaim for her tough, passionate thrillers set against the lush Lake Tahoe landscape and the world of one remarkable Attorney Nina Reilly. In this spellbinding new novel, O’Shaughnessy delves deeper into the heart and psyche of her popular heroine as Nina journeys back to her hometown to heal old wounds, and instead discovers that old secrets can be the deadliest kind....Nina Reilly needs a fresh start. In three years, she’s taken on some of Lake Tahoe’s most controversial cases and has turned her struggling one-woman law firm into a thriving practice. Now she’s ready to sort out her complex relationship with her boyfriend, Monterey P.I. Paul van Wagoner. So she’s heading to the Carmel Valley, the place where she began her career and where her estranged father lives. It’s also a place of dramatic contradictions and hidden tensions, of new wealth and old families. And, within days of her arrival, Nina is already feeling the heat, as a case of arson exposes some of the darkest secrets of her hometown.Two suspicious fires have already raged through the valley this summer, igniting suspicions of arson. When a third blaze ends in a fatality, police zero in on a Wish, the son of Sandy Whitefeather, Nina’s ex-assistant. The dead man is identified as Wish’s childhood friend, a troubled local auto mechanic who hated the changes wealthy newcomers had brought to the valley. Nina and Paul are certain that there is more to this strange case than meets the eye. As they work together to clear Wish, new, more frightening questions are raised, and another fire is set. And out of the flames a terrifying picture a community steeped in secrets and rage, a tangled history between two men, and a killer whose motives are dark and wrenching.With the relentless page-turning suspense that has become her trademark, Perri O’Shaughnessy once again demonstrates her talent to enthrall. A haunting tale of crime and punishment, old grudges and second chances, Presumption of Death is suspense fiction at its finest--instantly compelling and utterly impossible to put down.From the Hardcover edition.

Presumption Of Death

Piatkus

For Nina Reilly, the mountain town of Lake Tahoe is home. It’s where she forged a successful career as a tough, resourceful attorney - and raised her teenage son, Bob, alone. Back from a stint in Monterey, where her love life took a tumble, Nina has returned to her Tahoe law office with her old friends Sandy Whitefeather and Sandy’s son, Wish. It isn’t long before she has a new client whose wife was shot and killed during a casino-district robbery two years before. The police have no suspects, and the robbery victims, three students, lied about their identities and are hiding outside California and the reach of the court. Two of the witnesses have fled to a village not far from the home of Bob’s father, Kurt Scott, in Germany. As Nina tries to unravel the mystery of one violent Tahoe night, a harrowing journey begins - one that takes her from the dark underworld of Tahoe’s casinos to the halls of a prestigious East Coast university to Europe and an emotional reunion with Kurt. As old feelings are rekindled, Nina’s case turns violent. Everyone has something to hide - the brilliant but unstable mathematics student who has made an astonishing discovery, the owner of a motel where the shooting took place, and the shooter, who has turned the whole case into a gigantic lie.

Case of Lies -- Signed By Author

Piatkus Books

Case of Lies

A New York Times Bestselling Author Nina Reilly takes on the most dangerous and difficult case of her career in O'Shaughnessy's latest thriller. An ingenious blend of forensic science, history, and gripping suspense, Unlucky in Law pits the tough but compassionate attorney against the most unbeatable adversary of all: the law. Brilliantly imagined and compulsively readable, this is a beguiling mix of wrenching drama and gripping action.

Unlucky In Law

Thorndike Press

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Books by Perri O'Shaughnessy