Breach of Promise

Island Books, 1999. Very Good. Nina O'Reilly, the solo Tahoe lawyer with an attitude, is back. So are her loyal but surly assistant, Sandy, and her oddly detached lover, ex-homicide dick Paul. This time the legal issue is palimony. Wealthy, aggressive Mike Markov tells his wife, Lindy, that he's leaving her to marry a young emplo yee of the business Mike and Lindy have built together. Lindy, a maverick n ot averse to keeping secrets from her own attorney, hires O'Reilly to bring suit against Mike for half the businessAreckoned in millions. Mike hires a shark, Jeffrey Riesner, who makes O'Reilly feel so outclassed that she hir es smooth co-counsel Winston ReynoldsAwho turns out to be an addicted gambl er. The case is much bigger than any O'Reilly has tried before, and it plun ges her into a tangle of reversals, deceits and snarly legal traps that the author actually two sisters writing under the pseudonym O'Shaughnessy (Obs truction of Justice)Ahandles adroitly, snapping out plenty of twists on the legal and moral sides of a midlife crisis.