A Defense for the Dead Tapa dura - 2004

Michael Fredrickson was born in rural Minnesota. He received his B.A. from Macalester College, studied English literature at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and at the University of Toronto. He worked as a college professor, a hippy farmer, an auto mechanic, a lumberjack, a bar musician, and a singing telegrapher before obtaining his law degree from Harvard Law School.
Fredrickson spent five years working in a large Boston law firm before becoming general counsel to the state agency that polices lawyers in Massachusetts. He has also taught legal ethics and other subjects at Boston law schools. His fascination with the ethical dilemmas lawyers face is evident his crime novels, particularly" A Cinderella Affidavit" (1999) and "A Defense for the Dead" (2004). His second novel, "A Witness for the Dead" (2001), was a Boston Globe bestseller and the biggest seller of the year at Spencer's Mystery Bookshop in Boston.
Fredrickson lives with his wife and son in the Boston area. He summers on Cape Cod and still returns regularly to visit friends and family in Minnesota. He has participated both as a teacher and as a student in the Demos Writers' Workshop.