Proof
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4.0 • 3 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
INSTANT #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Nominated for the G.P. Putnam’s Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Award
From the former Chief Justice of Canada and #1 bestselling author of Full Disclosure comes a razor-sharp thriller featuring defense attorney Jilly Truitt as she defends a high-profile mother accused of kidnapping her own child.
Jilly Truitt has always put her job as a criminal defense lawyer first, but becoming a new mother has changed her priorities. For the first time in her career, she’s taking some long-overdue time away from her firm and the day-to-day grind of cases, enjoying the quiet delights of motherhood.
Then the daughter of celebrity pop star Trist Jones goes missing and his ex-wife, Katie, is charged with kidnapping. Everyone from the police to the media believe Katie is guilty—her reputation was ripped to shreds in the tabloids during their divorce and subsequent custody battle. Call it mother’s intuition, but Jilly has her doubts. Katie’s whole life was about being a mother, and she and Trist were very public about their problems conceiving, shining a spotlight on their use of a surrogate. After everything she went through to have a child, Katie claims that she would never do anything to hurt her daughter, and she begs Jilly to take her case.
Jilly agrees, but Katie’s prospects don’t look good. Police have found a witness who says he saw Katie with Tess the afternoon she disappeared, and they are close to giving up the search. The best chance Jilly has of clearing Katie’s name is to find the missing girl. But as the weeks go by, the police begin to suspect that Tess might be dead. With the threat of a murder charge hanging over Katie’s head, Jilly must find the real kidnapper and save Tess before it’s too late.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
McLachlin, former chief justice of the Canadian Supreme Court, delivers an underheated third case for criminal defense attorney Jilly Truitt (after Denial). At the outset, Jilly is taking time off work to tend to her newborn daughter, whose father was murdered while Jilly was pregnant. But when Crown prosecutor Cy Kenge asks Jilly to take the case of Kate Sinclair-Jones, ex-wife of well-known musician Trist Jones, she agrees to head back to the courtroom. Kate has been charged with killing her five-year-old daughter, Tess, who was abducted from Trist's home on British Columbia's Bowen Island; a series of grainy photographs appear to show Kate and Tess leaving the island in a small boat. As more circumstantial evidence piles up against Kate, Jilly starts to zero in on some other plausible suspects—but the lead detective is suspiciously reluctant to investigate anything that might shift focus from Kate. McLachlin provides an illuminating window into the gradual process of constructing a defense case. For a legal drama, however, there are surprisingly few courtroom pyrotechnics on offer, and the pacing drags. Readers will be disappointed.
