Review: Invasion of Privacy by Perri O'Shaughnessy

A few weeks ago I read and reviewed the first O'Shaughnessy book fearing Nina Reilly, attorney, who had moved to Lake Tahoe following her divorce. In Motion to Suppress Nina and her son Bobby were living with her brother and his family as she established her new practice. I really enjoyed getting to know these characters and the Lake Tahoe area, so I was anxious to read the second book in the series.

Invasion of Privacy continues their story and the connection between Nina and an investigator from California named Paul Van Wagoner. We also learn the identity of Bobby's biological father. All of the characters, both personal and business, anyone connected with Nina actually, are in terrible danger in this book because of Nina's client, a woman film maker named Terry London. I was pretty sure everything would work out all right, but I was definitely afraid for some of the characters, including Nina and her son. This is a edge-of-the-seat read that has you holding your breath more than once. I suspected who-dun-it early on but couldn't be sure until near the end.

The plot involves four young women who disappeared several years earlier and a movie London made about one of them who hasn't been seen in 12 years. Nina represents London in an invasion of privacy case brought by the parents of the girl and others who are horrified by the movie and don't want it released. That case and what happens as a result involve fascinating legal issues, and bring Nina up against an attorney she has faced off with before. He's everything a lawyer shouldn't be, a character you'll love hating. He discovers that Nina is much too clever and versed in the law for him to be crossing her.

I loved this book as much as the first one. Now I see I don't have the third one so I'll be off to the library to borrow it. We have so many mystery lovers in this area, I'm sure they'll have it. I do recommend both O'Shaughnessy books I've read so far.

Motion to Suppress by Perri O'Shaughnessy

A good friend gave me a pile of books recently, including several by Perri O'Shaughnessy. This was my introduction to the O'Shaughnessy books, actually written by two sisters. I think I had avoided reading them on the basis of a vague suspicion that the novels would read as if written by a committee. I couldn't have been more wrong. This first book in their Nina Reilly series is seamless and engrossing.

In this debut, Attorney Nina Reilly is suddenly and surprisingly abandoned by her husband (also a lawyer), and not only that, he's taking back his home so she has to get out. So, she and her young son by a previous relationship head to her brother's home at Lake Tahoe while she figures things out. Matt and Andrea and their children are happy to have them stay. And that is followed by another sudden change when Nina rents a nice little office and hangs out her shingle to practice law on her own.

She hires a very practical and also very funny receptionist/secretary and waits in hope for her first client thinking about how many other lawyers there are in this small area. Well, one of the first clients becomes the defendant in Nina's first ever murder trial. Melissa (aka Misty) Patterson is a troubled young woman who seems to have murdered her husband. Not much about the case makes sense and Nina is under pressure from a smarmy big-time attorney to turn the case over to him, but something about Melissa makes Nina unable to turn her away. She digs in her heels, hires one of her ex-husband's old investigators, and starts on a difficult journey to the truth.

It's a fascinating case involving amnesia, shady doings at a casino where Michelle and her husband worked, greed, and infidelity, along with a mysterious event from Michell's childhood at Subic Bay in the Philippines.
I got so involved in it that toward the end I was even ignoring the football games on TV to finish the book. Now that never happens!

I recommend this O'Shaughnessy book at least and I'm anxious to dive into the second in the series. So glad my friend gave me a bunch of them.