Stefan Wyatt never has any luck. He’s a nice guy, who means well and loves and wants to marry his girlfriend Erin, but things always go wrong for him. The fact that he’s pretty dumb also has a lot to do with his misfortunes. So when Alex Zhukovsky, offers him $500 dollars to dig up the grave and get the skeleton of his grandfather, Constantin Zhukovsky who was, according to the gravestone, page to the Tsar (the last Tsar of Russia (who was, along with his family, murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1919), Stefan agrees which is a pretty dumb thing to do. And when he finds in the grave a much more recent burial the body of a woman wrapped in black plastic he doesn’t do the sensible thing ie. put everything back, run away and forgo the $500. No, he gets the skeleton, puts the woman back in the grave, and drives away. But then he=s stopped by the police because of a defective rear light and they find a bag of human bones in the boot of the car. Well, natch B that sort of thing happens to Stefan all the time. He ends up by being charged with the murder of the woman, who turns out to be Christina Zhukovsky, daughter of Constantin and sister of Alex. Alex denies ever having had anything to do with Stefan. And Stefan=s blood is found on a glass on Christina’s apartment. Worst of all, Stefan, silly chump, has already served two prison sentences and under California’s (where the story is set) notorious Three Strikes Law he is facing a mandatory sentence of at least twenty-five years, perhaps life. How unlucky can you get?
But Stefan’s luck turns when lawyer Nina Reilly is hired to return him. She’s a passionate defence lawyer who has ‘a calling to go out and save miserable souls who could not save themselves, help them through the labyrinth, make sure the rules were followed and that they had their defence, even if they were guilty.’ She will do her utmost to defend Stefan.
Nina and her son Bob have come to Monterey at the request of Klaus Pohlman who was Nina’s mentor way back when Nina was just a law clerk. Klaus has asked for her to assist in the defence of Stefan. She’s also come to Monterey to be with her lover Paul van Wagoner who is the criminal investigator for the defence team of Nina and Klaus, his job being to investigate the facts around Christina’s murder and to see if Christina’s brother Alex or her former lover Sergey Krilov fit the frame any better. Nina and Paul become engaged at the beginning of the novel but Bob hates Monterey and longs to return to his and Nina's home in Tahoe.
More problems arise with Nina’s legal colleagues, particularly Klaus, who, although he founded this law firm forty years ago to seek justice and make law, seems somewhat lackadaisical in preparing the defence case and presenting it in court. Why? Is it just his age or is there more to it? Nina becomes totally involved in preparing Stefan’s defence, so much so that her relationship with Paul gets put on to the back burner. He, for his part, is drawn into the world of the large Russian community in Monterey and the tragic story of the murdered Romanovs as he tries to unearth the facts about what precisely did happen on that night when Christina Zhukovsky was murdered. But he is not so involved that Nina’s neglect of him does not cause hurt and resentment which puts their relationship at risk.
This is a story for those who like compelling court scenes which, incidentally,
illustrate the differences between English and U.S. (Californian) law such as
the Three Strikes Law and the right to silence. It also provides a fascinating
picture of the self-contained Russian community at once living in the past and
aiming to fit into modern American life. And there is some fascinating information
about a little-known aspect of DNA and rare inherited diseases of the blood.
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Radmila May
Other books by Perri O’Shaughnessy are: Move to Strike, Writ of Execution, Unfit
to Practice, Presumption of Death.