Deborah Hawkins

Keeping Secrets, A Legal Thriller - Warrick Thompson Files Deborah Hawkins

An innocent man is scheduled to die. A United States Supreme Court nominee holds the key to his freedom. Which will she choose? Her career or his life?

For thirty years, Brendan Murphy has done the impossible. He has kept his client, Professor Edward Wynne Carter, III, alive on Virginia's Death Row. Three juries have convicted Ed of murdering his pregnant wife in 1983, but Ed continues to insist that the real killer is Allison Byrd, the law student who stalked him relentlessly and whose lies sent him to Death Row. Now Ed's execution is set for March 3, 2017, the day before his son Wynne's marriage to Claire Chastain.

McKenzie Fitzgerald, a name partner in Hugh Mahoney's San Diego law firm, learns of Ed's impending execution on the day that she also learns she has been nominated to the United States Supreme Court. She has evidence of Ed's innocence, but her career will be destroyed if she reveals it. Determined to save her career, she stubbornly insists Ed is guilty.

Claire enlists the help of Jeff Ryder to help her prove that Allison is the real killer. But when Claire is kidnaped on her wedding day, and Brendan has a heart attack, Jeff becomes responsible for saving Claire and Ed in the face of mounting evidence that Ed had both motive and opportunity to kill his wife.