Barbara Holloway is a defense attorney in Eugene Oregon. She has gone through several different phases of "lawyering" but seems to be settling down to criminal defense in her father's venerable law firm. While she sometimes chafes at being in the family firm, she does enjoy her father's company and advice.

Normally Wilhelms's Holloway stories revolve around Barbara's taking on impossible cases and finally proving the accused to be innocent, etc etc. Here we are presented with a very different quandry. Barbara is hired by the Board of Directors of a non-profit clinic to find out whether or not one or both of two different people associated with the clinic are guilty of murdering one of the clinic's Directors. The identity and conviction of the guilty party(s) is ultimately going to decide whether the clinic will continue in existence. It's a somewhat confusing and convoluted scenario that demands the reader pay close attention to the strands of who did what, and when and to whom. In addition, Barbara must then face the decision that she will be called upon to defend a client she has been hired to prove guilty!!!

The story resolves itself well with a very surprise ending, but not before taking us on the usual Kate Wilhelm roller coaster of blind alleys, red herrings and fun. ( )

One of Wilhelm's legal mysteries series, featuring Barbara Holloway, a lawyer in Eugene, OR. Past books in the series have featured excellent courtroom or courtroom-related drama, but not in this book--the plot never goes beyond the investigative stage.

The book starts out slowly as do all the books in this series, as Wilhelm sets the stage. In this book, a universally hated neurosurgeon is murdered and there is a large cast of suspects. Wilhelm does bring back Frank, Barbara's father, who, unfortunately, does not play as prominent a role as in previous novels. That's too bad, because Frank's idiosyncracity really enlivens the series. Barbara is dating the latest in a string of losers; the story brings her in contact with yet another potential lover.

After getting through the back story, the pace of the book picks up considerably. The denoument is satisfying although a crucial clue--pages of a diary--remains problematical in its discovery. If you can get beyond that, an entertaining read. ( )