Sworn to Defend (Hc)

In her latest adventure, Brooklyn criminal lawyer Cass Jameson (last seen in Troubled Waters, 1997) gains a reversal of the conviction of Keith Jernigan, a client she believes blameless, and then discovers that he may be responsible for a worse crime than the one for which he was convicted. In this complex page-turner, Cass is drawn unwillingly into a battle between her tenant, photographer Nellis Cartwright, and Nellis's ex-husband, Grant Eddington, a collector of Japanese art. Nellis wants to renegotiate the divorce settlement, accusing her lawyer, a friend of Cass's, of malpractice. Grant says Nellis stole some of his most valuable pieces. Cass receives anonymous threats, and someone hacks into her business computer. So, after Nellis is shot in Cass's office, Cass sensibly fears that she herself was the target. Meanwhile, Keith's friendship with the son of Cass's secretary lands the boy in jail. Suspicious of Keith, Cass and a friendly cop, Liam Gallagher, investigate her client's background, leading from the Crown Heights Hasidic community to a shabby artists' colony. In a terrifying climax, Cass is almost murdered by a surprising enemy and then is institutionalized in Bellevue. Her old friend Detective Leroy Button appears suddenly and, like a deux ex machina, clears up all problems in three pages, providing an abrupt and disconcerting end to this fast-paced novel. (Aug.)