Buried Evidence - Hardcover

Flawed heroes (or heroines) are nothing new in fiction. But Lily Forrester, the protagonist of Nancy Rosenberg's new novel, Buried Evidence, has a few skeletons in her closet that rattle alarmingly when her ex-husband threatens to open the door to her past. Unless Lily uses her legal connections (she's a Santa Barbara district attorney) to get him out of a drunken vehicular homicide charge in Los Angeles, he'll rat on her to the authorities. To further complicate matters, Lily's daughter Shana, a UCLA student, is the only other suspect in the hit-and-run incident. When her ex is murdered shortly after Lily bails him out, Shana, who found her father's body, is again a suspect. And Shana's being stalked by the psychopath who raped both her and her mother six years ago. Add a wrongful murder, a retired cop who lied to protect Lily, and a rich, handsome, successful lawyer who's still in love with her even though he knows her darkest secrets (or maybe because of them), and you have enough ingredients to keep this racy mystery moving a lot faster than traffic on the California freeways. Rosenberg has a deft hand with pacing and plot, although her characters seem varnished with a moral gloss that's as thin as their emotional complexity. The relationship between Lily and Shana seems particularly one-dimensional given the traumatic events they've shared. Lily's moral compromises are never resolved, even after her lover clears her of a murder she did, in fact, commit. But Rosenberg's fans won't quibble with the outcome, and the former prosecutor's latest suspense thriller will doubtless win her a few more. --Jane Adams

Nancy Taylor Rosenberg has worked for the Dallas Police Department, the Ventura Police, and served as a deputy probation officer in Ventura County, where she was assigned to court services. She has written six New York Times bestsellers. She lives in southern California.