Degree Of Guilt [Paperback] Patterson, Richard North

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist is found dead in a San Francisco hotel room, and Mary Carelli — celebrated TV correspondent — claims self-defense. She says he tried to rape her. The gun was his. But Christopher Paget, the defense attorney she calls (and her former lover), sees the cracks in her story immediately. The case explodes into a media spectacle, dredging up old secrets and forcing Paget to defend a woman he's not sure he believes. Richard North Patterson delivers a taut legal thriller that doubles as a razor-sharp examination of power, gender politics, and the stories we tell to survive. The courtroom scenes crackle with tension, and the moral ambiguity runs deep — no one here is simply guilty or innocent. For fans of Grisham's bite and Turow's psychological depth.