Breach of Promise

Nina O'Reilly, the solo Tahoe lawyer with an attitude, is back. So are her loyal but surly assistant, Sandy, and her oddly detached lover, ex-homicide dick Paul. This time the legal issue is palimony. Wealthy, aggressive Mike Markov tells his wife, Lindy, that he's leaving her to marry a young employee of the business Mike and Lindy have built together. Lindy, a maverick not averse to keeping secrets from her own attorney, hires O'Reilly to bring suit against Mike for half the business--reckoned in millions. Mike hires a shark, Jeffrey Riesner, who makes O'Reilly feel so outclassed that she hires smooth co-counsel Winston Reynolds--who turns out to be an addicted gambler. The case is much bigger than any O'Reilly has tried before, and it plunges her into a tangle of reversals, deceits and snarly legal traps that the author--actually two sisters writing under the pseudonym O'Shaughnessy (Obstruction of Justice)--handles adroitly, snapping out plenty of twists on the legal and moral sides of a midlife crisis. Although the jury deliberations drag and the action-adventure climax in boats on Lake Tahoe is unbelievable, O'Shaughnessy's courtroom strategies and her characters' idiosyncrasies keep ringing true. Author tour. (June)