Winter's Law — Stephen Penner

From the author of the top-rated David Brunelle Legal Thriller Series... Talon Winter was one of the most feared civil litigators in the Pacific Northwest -- until she was wrongfully terminated by her high-priced law firm for refusing to follow an unethical order. Forced to reinvent herself, Talon recalls the one time she truly enjoyed being a lawyer -- defending a fellow tribal member accused of murder -- and decides to strike out on her own as a criminal defense attorney. She's also going to sue the pants off her old firm. But balancing her personal lawsuit with a fledgling law practice proves more difficult that Talon imagined. She has no choice but to take on the first client who walks in her door: Michael Jameson, a successful, forty-something, African American husband and father -- who's just been charged with a 25-year-old cold case murder, a gang-related drug deal gone horribly wrong. The one question Talon needs answered is the one question Michael refuses to answer: Did he do it? Michael insists it doesn't matter. He's not the same person he was twenty-five years ago. He's built a new life in the intervening years, and nothing that happens now will bring the victim back. Instead, he poses a far more provocative question: Would the legal system reach back that far to take away everything built up by a successful White man? Talon must simultaneously battle her old law firm, a condescending prosecutor, reluctant witnesses, and even her own client to achieve that most elusive of goals: Justice.