First, Kill the Lawyers

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. [em]Agent: Alison Picard, Alison J. Picard Agency. (Jan.) [/em]