First, Kill the Lawyers
A Holland Taylor Mystery
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- $21.99
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
P.I. Holland Taylor returns in David Housewright’s Edgar Award-winning series with First, Kill the Lawyers, where Taylor is hired to recover stolen files before they are leaked, ruining more than just the careers of five local lawyers.
Five prominent attorneys in Minneapolis have had their computer systems hacked and very sensitive case files stolen. Those attorneys are then contacted by an association of local whistleblowers known as NIMN and are quietly alerted that they have received those documents from an anonymous source. If those files are released, then not only will those lawyers be ruined, but it might even destroy the integrity of the entire Minnesota legal system. This group of lawyers turns to Private Investigator Holland Taylor with a simple directive: stop the disclosure any way you can.
But while the directive is simple, the case is not. To find the missing files and the person responsible, Holland must first dive into the five cases covered in the files—divorce, bribery, class action, rape, and murder. While Taylor is untangling the associates and connections between the cases and families affected, things take another mysterious turn and the time before the files are released is running out. As the situation becomes more threatening, Holland Taylor is trapped in the middle of what is legal and what is ethical—between right, wrong, and deadly.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Edgar winner Housewright's gripping fifth Holland Taylor mystery (after 2018's Darkness, Sing Me a Song), a coterie of Minneapolis's top lawyers whose firms' darkest secrets have been hacked hire the PI and his capable partner, Freddie Fredericks, to prevent the hacker from fulfilling a threat to post the incriminating case files online. Though the five cases initially seem unrelated ("murder, divorce, class action, bribe, and rape"), Taylor discovers that each is somehow connected to a powerful local family dominated by its ruthless patriarch, Robert Paul Guernsey. Robert's troubled stepdaughter, a young woman of about 18, proves key to the investigation. The stakes rise when witnesses begin dying. Meanwhile, savvy, empathetic Taylor and some of his attorney clients grapple with questions about the conflict between professional requirements and personal ethics. Housewright draws the Twin Cities with lovingly detailed strokes. This tightly plotted installment with its many twists will satisfy both series fans and newcomers.)
