A Poisoned Mind
A Trish Maguire Mystery
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
"I don't know how you've survived at the Bar this long," Anthony said to Trish. "Caring for your clients to the point of derangement is bad enough; but to start fretting over the opposition. . . . "
In spite of the barristers' rule that any suitably quali?ed member of the Bar who is free to take an offered case must do so, QC Trish Maguire can't quite understand how her head of chambers, Anthony Shelley, can accept a case defending the corrupt Clean World Waste Management company. So when the brilliant and cynical Anthony is nearly killed in an accident, Trish is faced with a painful dilemma: Does she take over the company's defense, or threaten her hard-won career by refusing to appear in court against Angie Fortwell, the impoverished widow of a hard-working farmer? As Trish delves deeper into the case, she grows more and more troubled by a nagging thought: Was the explosion that killed Angie's husband really an accident, or the result of sabotage?
With all this going on at work, the last thing Trish needs is the possibility of explosions at home. Yet she can't simply walk away from Jay, the clever but damaged fourteen-year-old boy who has attached himself to her family---especially when his mother is found beaten and close to death.
A brilliant novel of crime and its consequences, A Poisoned Mind demonstrates the full range of Natasha Cooper's emotional intelligence and storytelling powers.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
London barrister Trish Maguire, now a Queen's Counsel, undergoes messy professional and personal tribulations in her thought-provoking ninth outing (after 2007's Evil Is Done). When her head of chambers is severely injured in an accident, Trish assumes the defense of Clean World Waste Management against Angela Fortwell, who's arguing her own case after her husband died on their marginal Northumberland farm in a CWWM chemical tank explosion. The caring heart under Trish's judicial robes goes out to Angela, but it doesn't stop Trish from making a scrupulous and unorthodox defense. In addition, Trish; George, her partner of 10 years; and her early-teen stepbrother, David, struggle to free David's near-feral friend, Jay, from his slum-dwelling abusive family, like the one Trish herself once had to overcome. As current as today's environmental causes and as eternal as a woman's tightrope walk between self and others, this legal puzzler testifies to Cooper's insight and narrative powers. (June)