Her Deadly Game

Her Deadly Game is a stand-alone novel by award-winning, best-selling American author, Robert Dugoni. When Keera Duggan takes on the LaRussa murder case, she's only been with the family firm, Patrick Duggan & Associates for a year, and she's never defended a murder case. But she's the daughter of Patsy Duggan, the Irish Brawler, and no one should underestimate her, especially not her narcissistic, controlling ex, Prosecuting Attorney Miller Ambrose. He's vindictive, but she vows that he's not satisfying his grudge in this trial.

Wealth management multi-millionaire, Vincent LaRussa claims he came home on a June Sunday night from a charity do to find his wife, Anne, shot in the back of the head as she sat in the kitchen in her wheelchair. The ghost gun is on the floor beside her. SPD Detective Frank Rossi leads the case, and tries to keep an open mind, but Ambrose has already decided the husband did it and, even if he has to play dirty, he'll prove it.

There are lots of little unexplained things at the scene, baffling bits of trace that seem to turn the whole thing into a riddle. Anne had two visitors before Vince returned home and, on that sweltering June night, the air-con had been turned off.

Each piece of information that Keera's investigator turns up adds another wrinkle to an already puzzling case, and to complicate matters further, Keera is receiving anonymous emails that point her to bits of LaRussa's history, facts that don't put him in too favourable a light.

Then there is the allegation of infidelity, and a punishing pre-nup. Is Vince a devoted husband? Or is he a lying, cheating psychopath? Did Anne's best friend and doctor cheat with Vince? Who else might have a motive to kill Anne LaRussa?

As well as the pressure from the PA, Keera knows she needs to win this one for the sake of the family law firm, suffering her ageing alcoholic father's reduced performance.

Set in Seattle, there is some intersection with characters from the Tracy Crosswhite series, and Dugoni sets his story against the background of Keera's online chess game, the tactics of which may appeal to players, and parallel the court case strategies. There are plenty of twists and red herrings, and the astute reader will keep in the back of their mind an unsolved earlier case. Another excellent read from the master of the legal thriller. This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer.