The Good Fight: A Laura DiPalma Mystery

Matera's ( Where Lawyers Fear to Tread ) new mystery revolves around Laura Di Palma, once a political activist and now a rich lawyer with a prestigious San Francisco firm. Pricked by her conscience, however, Laura agrees to defend Dan Crosetti, a former comrade accused of killing an FBI agent. Simultaneously, she is searching frantically for her cousin and lover, Hal Di Palma, missing from the hospital where he was being treated for a stroke. Neglecting Crosetti and her duties at the law office, Laura offends her client's friends as well as her bosses. With hot water boiling all around her, she is forced from the law firm, and government agents link her to additional suspicious deaths. Her frenetic actions take the novel to a smash close. The author's unexpected coda leaves a sobering aftertaste, suggesting what can happen to those engaged in the ``good fight.'' (Jan.)