The Guilty Plea

A tired central plot and personal complications out of a daytime TV soap burden Rotenberg's second legal thriller featuring Toronto homicide detective Ari Greene (after Old City Hall). When Terrance Wyler "from the Wyler Foods grocery store" is found stabbed to death in his kitchen one morning, the obvious suspect is Wyler's wife, Samantha, with whom he was embroiled in a bitter divorce. Samantha e-mailed him a threat shortly before the murder, and their four-year-old son, who was asleep upstairs at the time, later informs the police that his mother visited him on the fatal night and told him she wouldn't be seeing him for a while. The prosecution falls to reluctant Jennifer Raglan, who's just stepped down as head Crown attorney to spend more time with her family%E2%80%94and broken off an affair with Greene. Certain developments, like Raglan failing to challenge the defense attorney's claim that Samantha never threatened her husband in an e-mail, will leave not just lawyers scratching their heads. (July)