Wrongful Death

David Sloane, the hotshot lawyer hero of Dugoni's first novel, Jury Master (2006), returns. Now living in Seattle with his wife and stepson, he finds that his ability to win difficult cases has not diminished. When the widow of a man who died in Iraq asks him to take her case, Sloane can't refuse, even though no one has ever successfully sued the U.S. government for wrongful death during a time of war and won. Facing impossible odds, Sloane starts to investigate, slowly unraveling a conspiracy that will threaten him and everyone he loves. Dugoni has improved dramatically since his first book, and this one is his best yet, mixing the suspense of a Grisham legal thriller with the political angle of a Baldacci. Dugoni is knocking on the A-list legal-thriller door and can be expected to gain entrance sooner rather than later.