When Louise Braniff discreetly hands Barbara Holloway a large retainer and asks for a complete anonymity, the Oregon attorney is both intrigued and suspicious. The woman, a respected music professor, is a member of a group that sponsors worthy causes involving women. And they want Barbara to defend Carol Fredericks, a gifted young pianist who stands accused of murdering the manager of a piano bar.
Not long ago Barbara heard Carol play, and that is enough to convince her to take the case. But now the questions are coming faster than the answers. Carol's straightforward version of what happened the night Joe Wenzel; was murdered clashes with the incriminating evidence against her. And how can Barbara explain the oddly incomplete picture she gets of the young woman herself?
Carol can't remember a huge part of her past — only the new life that began when she woke up in a hospital at the age of eight to learn that her parents were dead. She has no memory of learning to play the piano, and is having haunting nightmares about a woman named Carolyn Frye.
Soon Barbara is convinced that her client is not only innocent, but that she is being framed by ruthless foes who will stop at nothing to keep the past buried. However, proving the case and keeping her client safe will require every drop of Barbara's notoriously fierce determination to get at the truth. And as she unravels the stunning trail of deception, hatred and remarkably deep abiding love that holds the key to the mystery of Carol Fredericks, Barbara discovers that the unbidden truth may just damn them both.

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Oregon attorney Barbara Holloway has an unusual new client. Louise Braniff, member of a group that anonymously supports worthy women's causes, asks her to represent gifted pianist Carol Fredricks, who is accused of murdering the manager of the bar that employed her to entertain. Barbara heard her play and was impressed, but, as she interviews her client, she discovers major problems. When she was eight years old, Carol and her parents were involved in a serious automobile accident. Her parents died, and she woke up in a hospital with no memory of anything that happened. Barbara's investigation of the murder uncovers a web of deceit and greed that convinces her that someone is framing her innocent client. As always, genre veteran Wilhelm creates a thought-provoking, complex plot that will keep readers interested and make them think about ethical issues. Barbara Bibel
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

The Kelso/McIvey rehab center is a place of hope and healing for its patients -- and for the dedicated staff who volunteer there. For lonely newcomer Erica Castle, its' a place to make new friends. For brilliant physical therapist Darren Halvord, it's a chance to showcase his unusual gift. For beautiful Annie McIvey it's a sanctuary from a cruel husband. And for directors Naomi and Greg Boardman, it's a lifelong dram about to be destroyed if Annie's husband, David, has his way. A brilliant surgeon, an implacable misogynist, a man whose ego rivals his skill with a scalpel, David McIvey now has controlling shares in what has always been a non profit clinic. His plan to close the clinic and replace it with a massive new surgery center -- with himself at the helm -- means that the rehab center, with all its good work and good people, will be forced to close its doors. Since he is poised to desecrate the dreams of so many, it's not surprising to anyone, especially Barbara Holloway, that somebody dares to stop him in cold blood. When David McIvey is murdered outside the clinic's doors early one morning, Barbara once again uses her razor-sharp instincts and take-no-prisoners attitude to create a defense for the two members of the clinic accused of his murder. Though police suspect Darren Halvord and Annie McIvey of not only having an affair, but plotting to murder David, Barbra believes a more complex motive lies at the heart of the crime. In her most perplexing case yet, she is forced to explore the darkest places where people can hide -- the soul beneath the skin.

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Associated Press
The situation is complicated but the reader glides through it with amazing ease and never has to go back and reread a bumpy passage. Author Kate Wilhelm makes it all clear and understandable. However, solving the murder isn't so easy. The crime happened outdoors, but, just as in a locked-room mystery, it seems as though nobody could possibly have committed it. The reader has all the clues that lawyer and series regular Barbara Holloway has - except one. She figures it out in a story that isn't bogged down with legal talk and procedures. The real centre of the story is a nonprofit rehabilitation clinic in Eugene, Ore. The wife of one of its two founders is terminally ill. Her shares will be left to their children, who will probably sell them to create a for-profit rehab clinic. The other founder and his wife have died; their son, a brilliant, cold-hearted and widely hated surgeon named David McIvey, wants to turn the clinic into a for-profit surgical facility.McIvey is the murder victim, shot one rainy morning in the garden outside the clinic. Only a few people have a key to the clinic's outer gate. Holloway thinks the clinic should be saved and she also wants to know who killed McIvey. So, without being hired, she sets her sharp mind to work on the case.
~Mary Campbell, AP

Publishers Weekly
In Wilhelm's latest Barbara Holloway legal thriller, intrigue swirls around a rehab clinic. Erica Castle, a newcomer to Eugene, Ore., volunteers at the Kelso-McIvey Rehabilitation Center in order to make connections in the community. There she meets a network of friends and neighbors, all of whom become suspects in a murder when one of the clinic's owners, ruthless neurosurgeon David McIvey, is found shot dead after he threatens to shut down the place. The possible guilty parties are legion: McIvey's emotionally abused wife, Annie, is waiting for her pre-nup to expire so she can exit a loveless marriage with something to show; Darren Halvord, a brilliant physical therapist and handsome single father, was spotted at the scene of the crime; Naomi and Greg Boardman, founders of the clinic, have put their hearts and souls into an institution that's about to be destroyed. Enter criminal lawyer Barbara Holloway, known to Wilhelm fans for her appetite for difficult cases. Spunky, with a penchant for legal aid work and jeans and sweatshirts instead of suits and hose, she is retained by the Boardmans to disprove the police's theory: that Halvord and Annie McIvey are lovers who eliminated David McIvey so they could be together. The characters never really rise off the page, but there are engrossing plot twists aplenty, including one last humdinger in which Holloway proves she's well worth her fees.
© 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Booklist
Attorney Barbara Holloway's new case puts her in the middle of a difficult situation. The Kelso-McIvey Clinic in Eugene, Oregon, is famous for helping the seriously injured regain motor skills. The dedicated staff is upset when Dr. David McIvey inherits 50 percent of the clinic's shares and expresses a desire to close the facility and create a for-profit surgery center on the site. When a gardener finds him dead on the grounds, the police target his abused wife, Annie, and her alleged lover, physical therapist Darren Halvord, as prime suspects. The center's board hires Holloway to defend them and preserve the clinic's reputation. Her investigation uncovers much more than a possible love triangle. The cold, arrogant doctor has a greedy ex-wife, Halvord has a secret past, and a new volunteer is pursuing something other than good works and friendship. Holloway uses her sharp mind and creativity to bend a few rules and discover what really happened. Genre veteran Wilhelm presents a psychologically complex story with enough action to keep the pages turning. ~Barbara Bibel © American Library Association. All rights reserved

2001

Gus Marchand, a hardworking, God-fearing farmer, is found dead on his kitchen floor, and suspicion soon falls on Alex Feldman, Marchand's hideously deformed neighbor. At the request of another attorney, Barbara agrees to defend the young man, whom most of the town has already condemned. But there is another suspect, as well: Hilde Franz, a woman Gus had a very public altercation with just before he was murdered. Hilde also happens to be an old friend of Barbara's father, Frank, who, unaware of his daughter's involvement in the case, agrees to represent Hilde. For the first time in her career, Barbara cannot turn to her father for advice. Quite the contrary: she has to stay one step ahead of him if she's to have any hope of saving her client. Because she knows only too well what kind of legal mind she's up against.

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Oregon lawyer Barbara Holloway and her father, Frank, formerly her partner, find themselves on opposite sides in the murder of Gus Marchand, a case with two suspects. Kate Wilhelm gives this smoothly told version of "Beauty and the Beast" an interesting added dimension, since the relationship between the two equally hardheaded and talented lawyers has usually been collaborative, at least professionally. But when the school principal, who's Frank's client, dies under mysterious circumstances, Frank's determined not to let Barbara pin the blame on the dead woman in order to deflect attention from her own as-yet-unidentified client. By the time Frank learns that the defendant in question is Alex Feldman, a horribly disfigured and immensely secretive young man who was accused by Marchand of stalking his teenage daughter, the reader has begun to understand why Barbara is so convinced of Alex's innocence in Gus's death and so determined to protect him from public scrutiny.

Alex is a man with a secret: was Frank's late client (and friend) killed to protect it? As usual, Wilhelm devises a clever plot and peoples it with a cast of well-developed, fully human and complex characters. There's Alex himself, who's found a way to cope with the circumstances of his disfigurement and the rage and bitterness that might otherwise have consumed him; Graham Minick, the elderly doctor who has been his friend and confidante since he was a teenager; and Shelley, Barbara's beautiful young associate, who sees beyond Alex's ugliness and into his heart. By the time the trial of the man they call "the devil's spawn" begins, Frank and Barbara are on the same side, but it's the younger Holloway's star turn in the courtroom, which is where the novel really shines. A solid page turner that should delight the prolific Wilhelm's (No Defense, Defense for the Devil) many fans.
~Jane Adams

Publishers Weekly
Wilhelm's sixth Barbara Holloway legal thriller (after No Defense and Defense for the Devil) sustains her reputation as a fine stylist who is able to craft compelling plots and characters. Holloway's latest client is a brilliant young man named Alex Feldman, who has been left hideously deformed by a birth defect. He is accused of killing his next-door neighbor, Gus Marchand, a tyrannical religious zealot who saw Alex's deformity as the mark of the devil. There is little evidence against him, but Marchand has created such hostility and fear toward Alex in their small, rural community that it seems likely he will be convicted on the basis of his appearance alone. What makes his situation even more desperate is that he was born with part of his brain exposed: since any blow to the head might kill him, a prison term probably would be a death sentence. But did Alex do it? There is a real possibility (which Alex himself admits) that he is psychopathic, but he wasn't the only one with a motive: the high school principal was also at odds with Marchand, and she is a close friend of Frank Holloway, Barbara's father and mentor. This is a real puzzler in which the smallest clues are important. Readers are given all the necessary facts and Alex is an excellent character. Wilhelm does a good job of conveying his anguish and isolation, and doesn't skimp on rounding out other characters, including Dr. Graham Minick, Alex's friend and protector. The book begins and ends well, although it often fails to sustain velocity in between. Wilhelm's fans probably won't be disappointed, as its many good points outnumber the bad.
© 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

School Library Journal
Adult/High School-Alexander Feldman was born with extreme congenital deformities: his brain partly exposed, the right side of his face unformed with no ear, a misplaced eye, rudimentary lips, and no muscle control. Doctors covered his brain with a metal plate, fashioned a nose and lips of sorts, and sent him home with his bewildered, shallow parents. About to be institutionalized by his parents when he is in his teens, the young man attempts suicide and thereby saves his life. Soon to be retiring psychologist Dr. Graham Minick takes him into his secluded home in Oregon. Years later, Alex, who is gifted artistically and intellectually, has become a famous, if anonymous cartoonist. Then a neighbor is murdered, his wife dies accidentally, and Alex is blamed. A local principal is also found murdered. Barbara Holloway, an attorney known for taking on tough cases, agrees to defend him. She is hampered in her defense because Alex refuses to give up his anonymity. She doggedly pursues the question of who actually killed Marchand, the circumstances within his family that led to such tragedy, and the events leading to principal Hilde Franz's murder. Besides being a page-turner, the book offers real food for thought about attitudes toward the deformed physically as well as toward anyone who is "different." The consequences of hate, inflexibility, vanity, and a cruel dictatorship within a family are compellingly demonstrated. These characters suffer the consequences of their actions and leave readers with pondering their fates. ~Carol DeAngelo, Kings Park Library, Burke, VA © 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Booklist
Morals, bigotry, and sexual repression are at the center of the fifth novel featuring attorney Barbara Holloway. When a small town is jolted by the murder of a strong-willed, religious farmer, all eyes turn to one resident, a severely disfigured and reclusive artist. In the resulting trial, Holloway must contend with mounting evidence and several more dead bodies, all of which point to her client as guilty. Holloway makes an appealing lawyer-heroine, but this time the courtroom scenes seem oddly flat, adding little to drama of the story. Still, the plot itself is nicely constructed with a host of perplexing questions bubbling beneath the surface: Will vigilante justice win out? Are there more sinister plots waiting to be uncovered? And, of course, the most intriguing question of all, Did the defendant do it? That one isn't answered until the very end. Not the best of the series but a satisfying read for thriller fans.
~Mary Frances Wilkens © American Library Association. All rights reserved

2000

Barbara Holloway's a trial lawyer who tends to take on difficult cases. One involved a woman accused of killing her own child, another involved a mentally handicapped man, and her last one found her entangled in such a mess that it's a wonder she lived through it at all. But in every previous case she has had some fragment with which she could build an argument. This time out, it seems there's no defense at all. Lara and Vinny Jessup had a lovely May-December marriage. It renewed his lease on life after a battle with cancer, and it rescued her from a bad first marriage. Initially, the sheriff out in Loomis County thinks that Vinny died when his car rolled over on a bad curve on Lookout Mountain. Then he finds the gunshot wound. Was it suicide or was it murder? With a large insurance policy as her motive, Lara could have staged the death---or so it appears to the sheriff. Barbara Holloway finds herself drawn to the Oregon desert to take on this case, accompanied by her associates: her colleague Shelley with her Barbie-doll looks, the inimitable detective Bailey Novell, and her father Frank (who's soon to be a published writer!). But the case itself is as dead as the desert. Is there any defense at all?

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Frank and Barbara Holloway, the Pacific Northwest father-daughter legal duo familiar to Wilhelm's (For the Defense, Defense for the Devil) many fans, go east of the Cascades to Oregon's ruggedly beautiful high desert to investigate the strange death of Vinny Jessup. Was it a suicide staged to look like murder by Vinny's young wife Lara in order to collect a big insurance policy? Or was it murder set up to look like suicide by a right-wing judge in line for a nomination to the Supreme Court---the man Vinny Jessup believed responsible for framing his beloved younger son for murder nearly two decades ago? Wilhelm's strong suit is character development; here she introduces Manny Truewater, an intriguing Native American lawyer who was Vinny's partner and best friend (and worthy of a starring role in his own book), and also adds new dimensions to both the Holloways with a love affair that tests Barbara's commitment to her personal independence and a nascent career for Frank as a published writer. She's at her best when describing the power structures of a small town and the relationships that tie the Jessups to the ambitions of the people who really run things; while the pace is leisurely, the writing is assured, the ends neatly tied up, and the gorgeous landscape of a harsh and rugged region beautifully depicted. ~Jane Adams

Publishers Weekly
The murder case against young widow Lara Jessup appears airtight after her wealthy, much older, and terminally ill husband Vinny is shot on a twisting Oregon mountain road, and legal eagle Barbara Holloway struggles mightily to construct a defense for Lara in the first half of Wilhelm's latest legal thriller. Holloway is certain that the mountain of evidence indicating that Lara shot Vinny and then tried to make it look like a suicide is part of a setup by Harris McReady, an ambitious candidate for the Oregon Supreme Court who was also involved in an earlier "accident" in which Vinny's son from a previous marriage was shot. But Holloway travels down a series of dead ends in her efforts to unearth clues in the Oregon desert town where McReady is using his ties with a powerful rancher, Thomas Lynch, to press his case, and a conviction seems imminent as depositions are taken before the trial. The resourceful lawyer hits pay dirt, though, when the final leg of the investigation leads to McReady's gorgeous but damaged wife, who is also Lynch's daughter, and the pace picks up considerably as she dissects her opponent's marriage of convenience and the Lynch family history, revealing a hornet's nest of shady deals and coverups. Wilhelm spends considerable prose developing her quirky cast of characters, using the eerie milieu of the Oregon high desert to set off the oddness of this likable group. The attention to detail slows things up a bit, but once the depositions start, the action turns electric as the story races to an intriguing ending. Her carefully crafted approach to the legal thriller continues to separate Wilhelm from the competition, and those who prefer both style and substance in their courtroom dramas will find this a satisfying read.
© 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Library Journal
Prominent Oregon attorney Vinny Jessup is found dead in his truck at the foot of a cliff near his home in Bend, and Lara, his young wife, is promptly indicted for murder. Could this have been a suicide, or was Lara out to collect on Vinny's insurance? Enter Barbara and Frank Holloway, Wilhelm's (Defense for the Devil) popular father-daughter legal team. Lara swears she's being framed by a big rancher with Supreme Court aspirations, and when she produces a puzzling dossier on the good Judge McReady, the Holloways are truly stumped. McReady and the other big money ranchers are an intimidating, tight-mouthed bunch, but their stories are fundamentally credible. No one can vouch for Lara's actions on the night in question except for her young son. Typical of Wilhelm's many other excellent legal thrillers, a riveting story ensues as Barbara threads her way through a labyrinth of legal intricacies and tiny shreds of evidence. Throughout, Wilhelm's characters are believable, the setting attractively portrayed, and each subplot perfectly crafted and intertwined. This is her best work to date, superb enough to stand with the best of the genre. Highly recommended.
-Susan Gene Clifford Braun, The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
© 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Kirkus Reviews
A lockstep, by-the-numbers legal procedural with all too few thrills. Wilhelm overcomes overwritten early scenes in which sunlight glints like an Aztec signal on a shard of a mirror and moves resolutely to an attention-grabbing opening in a new case for Oregon attorney Barbara Holloway (Malice Prepense, 1996, etc.). Its a hot summer in eastern Oregon when 33-year-old nurse Lara Jessup awakens to her worst nightmare: Her 60-ish husband, Vinny, an established lawyer dying of bone cancer, has been found dead in a van on a treacherous road. An accident, suicide, or murder? Thats what Holloway needs to find out when Lara becomes the prime suspect. But there are a lot of people in the small town of Salt Creek who want to stop Holloway from discovering the truth. Primary among them are the unhappily married Judge Harris McReady and his wife, Babe, treasured daughter of prime mover and shaker Thomas Lynch. McReady is in line for a Supreme Court position and doesnt want his reputation damaged by another murder that goes back many years. Vinnys son, Lewis, was accused of a double homicide, then mysteriously disappeared. Vinny was certain McReady had something to do with it. Holloway does a slick but unspectacular job of ferreting out the culprits in a meticulously presented pre-trial deposition process. A minor subplot involving Barbaras father, Frank, and his attempt to publish a book on cross-examination provides comic relief; his cooking skills offer tasty side dishes. There is also a heartfelt treatment of the emotional and moral bonds between various and sundry parents and children. But by the time Wilhelm returns from these digressive matters to trot out the solution to the mystery, the amused, well-fed reader has pretty much outguessed Holloway. Best for its regional details, fast-paced dialogue, and solid character delineation.
©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

1999

In her three previous novel appearances, attorney Barbara Holloway has taken on the sort of cases no one else wants -- hopeless messes, all of them -- and with the help of her father, Frank, she has pulled through each time. But even from the start, this new case is different. In order to clear up the murder of Mitch Arno, she's going to face a worthy opponent: herself. Mitch Arno always meant bad news for the coastal town of Folsum, Oregon. When they ran him out of town seventeen years ago, he left behind a wife with two daughters and a family that never wanted to see him again. When he returns, he brings trouble in the form of a lot of suspicious money. As Barbara attempts to counsel Mitch's wife about the money, a second form of trouble arrives: a corpse. Mitch's. And now Barbara is in a morass of conflicting interests, and the only way out could lead her straight into the arms of the devil.

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Can this marriage be saved? Oregon's take-no-prisoners defense attorney Barbara Holloway wed geologist John Mureau in her last book, and already things are looking bad. The problem isn't Barbara's lack of cooking skills: her father, Frank, has enough of those to spare and will whip up a gourmet meal for everyone in sight at the slightest pretext. Nor is it the crush of living and office space--renting two adjoining apartments in a new building in Eugene takes care of that. What really bothers John is the constant danger that Barbara's work conjures up for her, for her family, and now for his children, if they should be around when a case explodes.

Barbara Holloway is using every slick legal arrow in her quiver to make sure that her client, Maggie Folsum, gets to keep a large lump of cash that her career criminal husband left behind when he trashed Maggie's bed and breakfast and then was found beaten to death. The danger to Holloway begins when Maggie's brother-in-law is charged with the murder, even though the most obvious candidate is the crime boss who employed (and was double-crossed by) the late husband. Will Barbara fight off the IRS in time to defend the innocent brother-in-law? Will the mysterious mobster (powerful enough to make witnesses perjure themselves) actually give up his minions if pressed hard enough? Will John and Barbara stay together in those two terrific apartments, and will her white sauce ever work? Unlike most writers of legal thrillers, Wilhelm cares as much about her characters as she does about her courtrooms--which is why her books (including The Best Defense, For the Defense, The Good Children, and Justice for Some) are such genuine pleasures. ~Dick Adler

Publishers Weekly
"Evil infects some people... it gets into the system and stays like a virus that is never killed," seasoned criminal lawyer Barbara Holloway reflects, in the fourth thriller by Wilhelm (The Good Children) to feature the Eugene-based attorney. Maggie Folsum's abusive ex-husband, Mitch, has come tearing back into her life, threatening Maggie and ransacking the inn she operates. The dirt that Holloway's investigation turns up on Mitch piles higher and higher?until he's six feet under it and his good-guy brother Ray stands wrongfully accused of his murder. Holloway agrees to defend Ray, hoping to secure long-in-arrears child support from Mitch's stash of dirty money. She's up against a corrupt organization run by a man named Palmer, whose cleverness and casual violence are frightening, but she believes that she can outwit them. After Ray's trial, and as the tension mounts, Wilhelm employs an overused device for the disappointing denouement: Palmer's arrogance undermines his ingenuity. The nuances of courtroom procedure are compellingly presented, however, including a sophisticated look at the complex psychology of a jury.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Library Journal
Mitch Arno is a spouse abuser, small-time thug, and general ne'er-do-well. When he trashes wife Maggie's cozy Oregon B&B after his latest "job," she kicks him out, and he heads for his brother's house. Meanwhile, Maggie turns to attorneys Barbara Holloway and her father, Frank, to get a restraining order against Mitch and file for damages. Then Mitch turns up dead, and brother Ray is arrested for murder. Maggie persuades Barbara to defend Ray, placing her and her father in the middle of a deadly web of deception and greed involving the theft of a valuable computer code, a senator's opportunistic wife, and a software tycoon who wants to settle the matter with a gun. Wilhelm (The Good Children, LJ 2/1/98) is a masterful storyteller whose novels have just the right blend of solid plot, compelling mystery, and great courtroom drama. Barbara and Frank Holloway are a likable team whose work in this latest case will leave readers begging for more. Highly recommended. ~Susan Clifford, Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, CA © 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Kirkus Reviews
Murder once again conceals a host of even dirtier secrets in this latest case for Oregon attorney Barbara Holloway (Malice Prepense, 1996, etc.). Seventeen years after he returned to his teenaged wife Maggie only to beat and rape her and abandon her and her baby again, Mitch Arno has come back once more. But this time he's the one who's beaten. Hours after he blusters his way back into Maggie Folsum's life, Mitch is dead, tortured to death, presumably, by someone who was interested in the contents of the suitcase ($$$$) and briefcase (something potentially even more valuable) that he brought all the way from Miami to Eugene. Barbara, agreeing to act for Maggie, maneuvers adroitly among Russ Major (the software developer whose property is in the briefcase), R.M. Palmer (the urbane businessman who's had Major's property hijacked), and the authorities (who would impound the money as part of Mitch's estate if they knew the story behind it), winning a belated $210,000 in child support for her client by playing the players off against each other. Meantime, though, the clueless D.A. arrests Mitch's brother Ray for his murder, and Barbara, who can't defend Ray because of looming conflicts of interest, has to watch from the sidelines while a spineless lawyer runs his case into the ground. Anybody who's not with the justice system will see where the guilt lies hundreds of pages in advance; Barbara's challenge here instead is to puncture the airtight case against Ray Arno, rout the apparently unstoppable forces of evil, and keep her father and partner Frank and her lover John Mureau from danger. She manages all this and more with the barely-legal dexterity of the early Perry Mason. Despite the often faceless charactersRay's wife, for instance, is a cipher, and Ray himself barely moreWilhelm's skill in spinning out endless complications while keeping every subplot perfectly clear makes this legal thriller her best in years.
©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

1996

also published in hardcover as Malice Prepense

Teddy Wendover is a hulking twenty-eight-year-old with the mind of a child. An accident at eight left him severely retarded. But did it turn him into a cold-blooded killer? Someone has bludgeoned Oregon congressman Harry Knecht to death. Knecht was the man who organized the ill-fated field trip that led to Teddy's injury. Two more murders convince defense attorney Barbara Holloway that there's a broader circle of guilt. Before staging a dramatic courtroom performance, she must sift through dead ends, hearsay, and veiled clues, only to discover that truth is more dangerous than speculation .

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Forget about Grisham, Turow and all those other scribbling ex-lawyers. The best writer of legal mysteries working today is Kate Wilhelm of Eugene, Oregon. Her first two books about Barbara Holloway -- The Best Defense and Death Qualified -- were sleeper successes. Holloway is a marvelously dense and thorny character, and her father and legal colleague is equally interesting. "He resolutely denied himself awareness of the time clock ticking away, and while denying it, he tried to remember if she was thirty-nine or forty," Wilhem writes of father Frank thinking about his daughter. "In his head, she was sometimes a very young girl, and then a woman older and wiser than he was; he no longer knew which image was more accurate. He suspected she was both, and then a few others, too."

Publishers Weekly
Wilhelm doesn't fool around: she writes clean, clear prose about real people in sometimes loopy legal situations. Returning from The Best Defense (1994), Eugene, Ore., lawyer Barbara Holloway and her 75-year-old father and partner, Frank, are hired to defend strapping Teddy Wendover, a severely retarded 28-year-old accused of murdering a congressman. Teddy, stuck at the mental age of eight after a childhood accident, is a wonderfully realized character, sweet without a drop of sentimentality. As the Holloways fight the legal-psychiatric establishment's efforts to institutionalize Teddy, who lives with his loving, well-off parents, the prosecution switches its focus to Teddy's father, Ted senior. It turns out that Ted's wife, Carolyn, had carried on a 15-year affair with the late congressman, providing the DA (and a pro-prosecution judge) with motive. Meanwhile, there are two other murders that Barbara is sure are connected with this one, but the judge blocks any linkage. The Holloways' investigation uncovers a large real estate development scheme (and links to the other murders), Barbara falls in love again (suddenly but believably) and there's a corker of a trial. As Wilhelm spins her riveting tale, she not only makes the legal system comprehensible and compelling but also makes her readers care about her characters, particularly the efficient yet vulnerable Barbara.
© 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Library Journal
As the title implies, premeditation is the real key to solving the latest of Wilhelm's cerebral courtroom thrillers (following Flush of Shadows St. Martin's, 1995). Attorney Barbara Holloway is hired to defend a 28-year-old brain-injured man who is accused of murdering an Oregon Congressman. With only a pile of rocks found at the murder scene tying the young man to the crime, Holloway skillfully clears him, but her client's father then becomes the prime suspect. Her defense of the now-accused father is much more complex. She ultimately reveals a common thread between the congressman's death and three other unsolved murders, uncovers a shady land development scheme, and, of course, fingers the real culprit. Deftly skirting possible Washington repercussions, Holloway mounts her defense and provides nail-biting courtroom tension, revealing much about our society's perception of ethics, family values, and the capabilities of the mentally challenged. This is a worthy contribution to the courtroom thriller genre by an author who has many novels to her credit. Recommended for most collections.?
~Susan Clifford, Hughes Aircraft Co. Lib., Los Angeles
© 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Booklist
Teddy Wendover, who is 28 but has the mental age of an 8-year-old, has been accused of three murders, including the brutal bludgeoning of an Oregon senator. Father and daughter attorneys Barbara and Frank Holloway take on the seemingly impossible task of proving Teddy's innocence. Accepting the yeoman's share of the job, Barbara slogs through a morass of dead ends, hearsay, and veiled clues before launching a superb and surprising courtroom performance that not only proves Teddy's innocence but also fingers the real murderer. Wilhelm proves yet again that she's one of the more talented writers in the genre, offering suspense, action, and tough, intelligent characters. A top pick for fans of the conventional mystery. ~Emily Melton

Kirkus Reviews
Oregon lawyer Barbara Holloway is catapulted into her latest case, defending land management agent Ted Wendover on a murder charge, when her father Frank wins the acquittal of Ted's son Teddy. The case against Teddy, the Holloways agree, is preposterous. Teddy is 28 going on 9, a man who's been stuck in a happy, well-adjusted childhood since a head injury on a school field trip 15 years ago. Now someone has killed Lois Hedrick, a classmate who was on the field trip; Harry Knecht, a teacher who tried to save Teddy from his accidental fall; and retired school principal Mary Sue McDonald--and killed them all with what looks very much like the rocks Teddy loves to collect. But a lot has happened since 1980--Lois Hedrick has been writing a dissertation on Oregon gold mining, and Harry Knecht was elected to Congress- -and the Holloways (The Best Defense, 1994, etc.) are convinced their murders have a lot more to do with a crafty land grab than with Teddy's old injury. But when Frank unexpectedly discovers an alibi for Teddy, the case against him proves to be a mere curtain-raiser for the far more convincing one against his father, whose reasons for killing Congressman Knecht only begin with the possibility that he blames him for his son's permanent childhood. In order to defend Ted, Barbara will have to put Denver consultant John Mureau, AWOL from Knecht's murder scene, on the stand. Mureau, however, has a damning history of mental illness. And the judge who's drawn the case, former prosecutor Jordan Ariel, isn't about to let Barbara's high-minded, long- winded cross-examinations come between him and a swift verdict. As usual in the Holloways' cases, veteran Wilhelm serves up far too much for comfort: Teddy's inscrutable sunniness, his family's domestic problems, Barbara's affair with John Mureau, the ungainly gold-lust intrigue, and some of the most punishing courtroom scenes on record. You've gotta feel for that poor judge. ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

1994

After her recent harrowing experiences, attorney Barbara Holloway isn't looking to take on any new courtroom cases; instead she's happy working from a booth in a café in the local working-class neighborhood. But when the sister of "Baby Killer" Kennerman asks for help, Barbara reluctantly looks into matters and finds that incompetent lawyers and a smear campaign from the local right-wing press are going to allow a killer to go free. The deeper Barbara delves into the case, the more atrocities she finds and the more she believes that the best defense may not be enough.

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Publishers Weekly
With this engrossing sequel to Death Qualified , prolific Wilhelm claims a leading place in the ranks of trial suspense writers. At a restaurant in Eugene, Ore., attorney Barbara Holloway regularly holds office hours for those who can't afford downtown representation. Lucille Reiner meets her there to complain about the court-appointed attorney defending her sister, Paula Kennerman. Dubbed the "Baby Killer" by the press, Paula is accused of murdering her young daughter before setting afire the home for abused women to which she and the child had recently fled. Lucille says her sister is innocent but has become withdrawn and uncommunicative and is giving in to the public defender's pressure to plead guilty. Barbara, still emotionally shaken by her fiance's recent death, meets Paula and breaks through her defenses, but then the public defender has his client severely sedated and bars Barbara from seeing her. Despite her reluctance to take on another high-profile case, Barbara becomes drawn into Paula's story and intrigued by suspected legal wrongdoings. Wilhelm provides suspense and excitement while adeptly portraying Barbara as a wily and sympathetic heroine.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

School Library Journal
YA-The murder trial of "Baby Killer" Paula Kennerman seems like an open-and-shut case. After taking refuge at a safe house for battered women, the defendent alledgedly set it afire, fatally burning her child. The plot twists with steadily mounting danger and tension as defense attorney Barbara Holloway sets out to prove her client's innocence. The characterizations and courtroom atmosphere are especially well done. Relevant social issues involving battered wives, the power of the media to influence opinion, and illegal business dealings that operate under a cover of sanctimony are smoothly woven into the story. This cleverly crafted page-turner proves that indeed the best defense is a good offense.
Judy Sokoll, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc

Library Journal
Attorney Barbara Holloway, introduced in Death Qualified (LJ 6/15/91), here defends Paula Kennerman, a battered wife accused of killing her daughter and burning down the safe house in which they had been sheltered. As in her previous appearance, Barbara is ably assisted by her lawyer father, Frank, and backed by the resources of their prosperous law firm. The Holloways' crack team of private investigators assures that important clues are developed in time to use as evidence as Barbara skillfully conducts the defense in a suspenseful trial. The ambitious plot-subplot net threads together abortion rights, antifeminist backlash, and the inequities of legal aid for rich and poor. Unfortunately, the story is badly flawed by the author's apparent ignorance of domestic violence shelters and support networks. Even in the rural Northwest, such shelters and networks provide better care than the leaderless, ad hoc housing pictured here. Barbara, however, is a complex and appealing woman; her next court appearance will be eagerly awaited. Wilhelm's presence in the suspense genre is impressive; already a master of fantasy, she brings a competent voice and a thoughtful eye to her new territory.
~Elsa Pendleton, Boeing Computer Support Svcs., Ridgecrest, Cal.
© 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Booklist
Attorney Barbara Holloway has given up on her father's dream for her to become a successful lawyer. The deaths of both Barbara's mother and her lover have deeply affected her, and now she lives on the tiny salary she makes helping the poor who can't pay for "real" legal services. When Lucille Reiner first asks Barbara to help her sister, Barbara has no idea that Lucille's sister is Paula Kemmerman, dubbed the "Baby Killer" by the press after her six-year-old daughter was burned to death, allegedly by a temporarily deranged Paula. The more Barbara investigates, the more certain she becomes that Paula is the innocent victim both of a right-wing fundamentalist with an ax to grind and of a legal system that has turned its back on an innocent woman. This latest in the Barbara Holloway series reaffirms veteran sf and mystery author Wilhelm's mastery of yet another genre--the courtroom drama. An action-filled thriller guaranteed to please current fans and create many new Wilhelm converts. ~Emily Melton

Kirkus Reviews
Defiantly barefoot Oregon lawyer Barbara Holloway (Death Qualified, 1991) calls a truce with her lawyer father and buys pantyhose and a proper courtroom jacket in order to defend battered wife Paula Kennerman, accused of killing her six-year-old daughter and setting fire to the women's safe house at Canby Ranch. The Dodgson family, the ranch's wealthy neighbors, are baying for the child killer's blood--a demand that dovetails neatly with the shrill, troglodyte editorial stance of Richard Dodgson's weekly paper--and it looks as if they have Paula's bright, boyish public defender, Bill Spassero, and her private-duty physician in their pockets. Enter Barbara and her tattered legions (Paula's sister Lucille Reiner, Barbara's newly supportive father, a trio of grad- student researchers), seeking to get Bill to withdraw from the case so they can mount a defense that will raise the specter of reasonable doubt and impeach Paula's abusive husband, Jack, the hysterically bullying Dodgsons and their spies and toadies, and the nationwide anti-abortion, anti-birth control, anti-feminist lobby. Sprawling and overlong--especially the trial sequences--but ultimately rousing, considering how much Barbara's fighting for and how much it matters. ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

1991

Five years ago Barbara Holloway gave up practicing law, disillusioned with a profession that put politics before justice. Then she receives a phone call, with a simple message: "I need you." Nell Kendrick's husband disappeared seven years earlier, abandoning his young family. Nell hasn't seen him since -- until the day Lucas Kendricks arrives at the edge of her property and is shot, instantly killed. Accused of his murder, Nell turns to lawyer Frank Holloway for help. But Frank knows he cannot win this case alone. He calls upon his daughter, Barbara, who remains "death qualified" -- legally able to defend clients who face the death penalty if convicted. Barbara is determined to stay distanced from the case, but the more she learns, the more questions she finds herself asking. Is Nell innocent, as Frank attests? Where has Lucas Kendricks been for the past seven years? Despite her vow, Barbara finds herself drawn to the case . . . and reclaims the search for truth that first led her to the law

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Publishers Weekly
Veteran writer Wilhelm ( Sweet, Sweet Poison ) has produced another intricate, many-layered novel, in equal parts murder mystery, science fiction, psychological study and consideration of legal ethics. Nell Kendricks is charged with murdering her estranged husband, Lucas, who disappeared years ago while working on a top-secret experiment attempting to use chaos theory to change the observer's perception of the universe. Now it appears that Lucas had spent the intervening years drugged and amnesiac, a handyman at the university where the studies had taken place. Attorney Barbara Holloway, who is "death qualified" (i.e., legally permitted to act in capital cases), agrees to defend Nell, despite having left the profession, disillusioned by its practices. Barbara decides the key to the case lies in the chaos project and the mysterious death of one of the researchers. Facing a politically motivated, hostile prosecutor, Barbara is helped by a young mathematician, who becomes her lover. Wilhelm sensitively depicts her characters and their relationships, creating an insightful study of what is and what might be, ending in thought-provoking ambiguity.
©1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Library Journal
Noted for both her science fiction/fantasy novels as well as her mysteries, Wilhelm combines these genres in her latest fiction. The novel begins with an arresting first paragraph, and the intensity is sustained until the final page. Lucas Kendricks, an unwilling participant in a scientific study on the mathematical theories of chaos, is murdered, allegedly by his wife Nell. Lucas had suffered from an altered perception of reality as a result of being used as a guinea pig. The story gradually unfolds during the aftermath of Lucas's murder. The novel's title refers to the lawyer who defends Nell, who is "death qualified," i.e., qualified to conduct a case with a potential death sentence. It is difficult to describe the novel's many dimensions, ranging from tense courtroom scenes to the almost fantastic descriptions of the scientific study. Most astonishing is the author's ability to peel off one layer after another, revealing new ways of looking at the same facts. Highly recommended for general readers.
~Kathy Armendt Sorci, IIT Research Inst., Annapolis, Md.
©1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Kirkus Reviews
Another heaven-storming hybrid of mystery and fantasy from veteran Wilhelm (Cambio Bay; Sweet, Sweet Poison, etc.): What's the link between a powerful mind-altering computer program and two murders in the Oregon woods? Seven years ago Lucas Kendricks deserted his young family and took off for mathematician Emil Frobisher's research project in Colorado. Now, after one day's warning--he ordered a monster computer to be sent to his old address--he's back, and then, moments later, he's dead, along with a young woman he gave a lift to only a few hours before. The police think Lucas raped and killed the hitchhiker and was shot down by his tiny, sharpshooting wife Nell; but defense attorney Barbara Holloway, needled by her estranged father into coming back to him and the law (she'd been on the run from both for five years after a dose of professional disillusionment) is convinced that Lucas's death had more to do with the mysterious men who followed him from Colorado. Taking on her share of clich‚s--alliance with her curmudgeonly, reluctantly supportive father; opposition from prosecutor/former lover Tony DeAngelo; romance with mathematician Mike Dinesen (whom she's called in to make sense of the connections Lucas had with Frobisher, psychiatrist Ruth Brandywine, and computer expert Walter Schumaker)--Barbara delves into those blank seven years, and comes up with answers that are even scarier than the questions: a set of the most user-unfriendly computer disks in literature. What does all this have to do with Lucas's murder? Not enough, unfortunately: the mixture of metaphysical fractals, courtroom drama, psychological thrills, and formal detection never quite jells. But the audacious scope of Wilhelm's cosmic riddling may spoil you for mysteries that merely ask whodunit. ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.