False Testimony

Summary

What does a lawyer do with a client who may be a liar—or worse? Marty Nickerson struggles with that very issue as she defends two men who are surely guilty—or are they?

Charles Kendrick, the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, has been named a "person of interest" in connection with the disappearance of his twenty-five-year-old spokesperson, Michelle Forrester. A multistate manhunt is already underway, and the district attorney is pressuring Kendrick for an interview, which his lawyer, Marty, doesn't want to grant. Meanwhile, Marty and her law partner and lover, Harry Madigan, are defending ex-con Derrick Holliston, who stands accused of murdering a popular local priest on Christmas Eve. He admits to the killing but claims, improbably, that he acted in self-defense. Both clients are lying, but to whom?

Michelle Forrester's body is found the day Derrick Holliston's trial begins, which leaves Marty and Harry facing two mounting legal battles and two clients whose stories don't make sense. Together they must confront the law in all its maddening complexity, battling for—or maybe against—their own cagey clients in order to see that justice is served.