When Judge Armando Acosta is charged with soliciting a prostitute, attorney Paul Madriani is less than sympathetic. Nevertheless, Madriani is forced to defend his old nemesis.And when the policewoman who snared Acosta is brutally murdered, Madriani wonders if the judge is also the executioner.The most explosive thriller yet by New York Times bestselling author Steve Martini — The Judge.

Riveting . . . a suspenseful tale, right up to the satisfying climax," wrote Publishers Weekly in praise of The Judge. "Legal thrillers don't get much better than this." Kirkus Reviews hailed Undue Influence as "the courtroom novel of the year." Now Martini delivers Paul Madriani's most challenging case yet: one pitting a drug-addicted mother against her daughter's newly rich grandfather in a contentious custody case that leads to criminal accusations and ultimately murder.Having moved to San Diego to be closer to the woman in his life, Madriani takes on the case of Jonah Hale, an elderly man in terrible straits. As a result of their only child Jessica's longtime drug addiction, Jonah and his wife have been raising their eight-year-old granddaughter, Amanda. On the heels of Jonah's multimillion-dollar state lottery win, Jessica revives her interest in mothering. When Jonah won't deal—maternal rights for a mega-bucks payoff—Jessica plays dirty: she accuses the old...

Defense attorney Paul Madriani is mired in a complex web of intrigue and murder when the sister of his late wife, embroiled in a bitter custody battle with her former husband, becomes the prime suspect in the murder of her ex-husband and his new young wife.

Defending a client accused of killing her father, attorney Paul Madriani is drawn into a treacherous conspiracy dating to World War II in this enthralling installment in the New York Times bestselling series.Paul Madriani and Harry Hinds have a new client: Emma Brauer, a woman accused in the "mercy killing" of her aged father, Robert Brauer. Insisting she's innocent, Emma tells Paul about a package sent to her father shortly before he entered the hospital. Bequeathed to him by a member of his unit from World War II, the box contains a key and a slip of paper. Emma fears that this package is connected to her father's death.When Paul's young assistant Sofia is murdered, Madriani is blindsided by the realization that Emma's fears are well-grounded.Digging into Robert's military history, Madriani discovers that other members of the Army unit Robert served with have recently died—under similarly suspicious circumstances. When he finds that the box sent to...

Navy SEALs are the military's elite—highly trained, deadly, and sworn to secrecy about the details of their dangerous and confidential missions. So when one of the men goes public about a high-profile assassination abroad, all of his comrades are thrown into peril. In this riveting novella, attorney Paul Madriani comes to the aid of a Navy SEAL who is pursued by his own government and facing possible prosecution for disclosures he says were made by others. When the soldier disappears, Paul finds himself ensnared in a deadly game of intrigue that forces him to track the man down before it is too late.

The Supreme Court is one of our most sacred – and secretive – public institutions. But sometimes secrets can lead to cover-ups with very deadly consequences. Terry Scarborough is a legal scholar and provocateur who craves headline-making celebrity, but with his latest book he may have gone too far. In it he resurrects forgotten language in the U.S. Constitution – and hints at a missing letter of Thomas Jefferson's – that threatens to divide the nation. Then, during a publicity tour, Scarborough is brutally murdered in a San Diego hotel room, and a young man with dark connections is charged. What looks like an open-and-shut case to most people doesn't to defense attorney Paul Madriani. He believes that there is much more to the case and that the defendant is a pawn caught in the middle, being scapegoated by circumstance. As the trial spirals toward its conclusion, Madriani and his partner, Harry Hinds, race to find the missing Jefferson letter – and the secrets it holds about slavery and scandal at the time of our nation's founding and the very reason Scarborough was killed. Madriani's chase takes him from the tension-filled courtroom in California to the trail of a high court justice now suddenly in hiding and lays bare the soaring political stakes for a seat on the highest court, in a country divided, and under the shadow of power.

Steve Martini has written a wonderfully crafted and clever courtroom thriller. We unquestionably have a new literary lion in the fictional crime genre. --Vincent Bugliosi "In the tradition of great courtroom dramas, Steve Martini's Compelling Evidence is a taut, tense tale that I simply could not put down." --Dominick Dunne "Sets a standard for suspenseful, intelligent courtroom drama that will be hard to equal. It's by far the best of the genre I've ever seen . . . Absolutely thrilling." --Clifford Irving "Terrific and intriguing legal drama . . . thoroughly entertaining. It's great!" --Melvin Belli "Superb . . . truly on a level with Presumed Innocent." --F. Lee Bailey

Defending an innocent young man, defense attorney Paul Madriani uncovers a morass of corruption and greed that leads to the highest levels of political power in this electrifying tale of suspense from New York Times bestselling author Steve Martini.One of the most successful lawyers in the country, Olinda Serna is a master at managing money as well as her influential clients. After years of fierce combat in the political trenches, Serna knows all the dirty secrets, where the bodies are buried, and how deeply they are stacked. When she's killed in a roadside crash in the high desert of Southern California, powerful heads in Washington begin to panic, worried that their secrets may not be safe anymore.Alex Ives, a friend of Paul Madriani's daughter, is accused of vehicular manslaughter in Serna's death. Ives claims he had only one drink on the night of the accident, yet he can't remember anything between the time he left for a party north of San Diego and the moment...

“The sort of compulsive page-turner that keeps readers up at night….Both timely and scary….Guardian of Lies more than satisfies.”—Washington Times Defense attorney Paul Madriani is caught in a web of deceit and murder involving Cold War secrets, a rare coin dealer who once worked for the CIA, and a furious assassin in Guardian of Lies, the most entertaining novel yet in the New York Times bestselling series. Steve Martini, #1 bestselling author of Shadow of Power, Double Tap, and other acclaimed Madriani thrillers, demonstrates once again why he’s one of the genre’s masters, along with John Grisham, David Baldacci, James Patterson, John Lescroart, Brad Meltzer, and Scott Turow.From Publishers WeeklyPaul Madriani's chance encounter with 26-year-old Katia Solaz, a Costa Rican beauty, leads to a desperate race to avoid not only personal disaster but also a national one in Martini's sprawling 10th thriller to feature the Southern California defense attorney (after Shadow of Power). Katia, who's living with creepy Emerson Pike, a man old enough to be her grandfather, in a dilapidated estate surrounded by an expensive security fence, decides to return home to Costa Rica. In her flight, she just misses running into the legendary assassin known as the Mexecutioner, who sneaks into Pike's house. The naïve Katia and well-meaning Madriani, who meet in a grocery store, provide a welcome human element amid the busy action involving escaped Guantánamo prisoners, a Colombian rebel base, a Mexican drug cartel and a plot to bring the war home to the Great Satan via a nuclear device. Tidbits like how the FBI can use cellphones as remote bugging devices add to the fun. (July) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From the Back CoverA woman is looking for a way to flee a darkened San Diego beach house where she has been held a virtual prisoner by a wealthy man . . . just as a killer enters the mansion on a terrifying mission of blood and carnage.Fate has bound attorney Paul Madriani to a young Costa Rican woman accused of a horrific crime, ensnaring them both in a frightening conspiracy that ranges beyond U.S. borders. A Cold War nightmare is being reshaped for a new century—a threat too terrible to imagine yet too real to be ignored—leading Madriani, his partner Harry Hinds, and the fugitive Katia directly into the path of an unstoppable, very angry assassin. From the halls of American justice to the jungles of South America and a dark secret buried since the days of Castro’s ascendance, the race is on to prevent the unthinkable—by unveiling the hidden truth protected by the "Guardian of Lies."

The Attorney, which marked the return of Steve Martini's lawyer-sleuth Paul Madriani, was hailed for its "well-observed courtroom maneuverings" (The Christian Science Monitor) and "crisp dialogue and tart observations" (Publishers Weekly). Now Martini delivers the most daunting capital case of Madriani's career. Paul Madriani has ample reason to suspect he's representing a guilty man. Dr. David Crone, a respected medical researcher and principal in mapping the human genome, is charged with the murder of a young colleague: twenty-six-year-old Kalista Jordan, an African-American research physician whose body washed up on a beach in San Diego Bay. Forensic evidence links her murder with material in Crone's garage. Crone had both opportunity and motive: Kalista had recently ended their affair, and may have been deserting him professionally as well, moving on to a rival genetic research facility. However, when a key witness for the prosecution dies unexpectedly, leaving an...

"Attorney Paul Madriani defends a highly decorated soldier who is on trial for murder, and unwittingly steps into a maze of secrets and lies that the government - and even this client - would rather leave hidden and undisturbed." "Madriani is faced with arcane ballistics evidence, the so-called double tap - two bullet wounds tightly grouped to a victim's head, from shots that can have been made only by a crack marksman. Madriani's client is an enigma, a career soldier who refuses to talk about his past, though clearly he is a battle-tested pro. The victim was an alluring businesswoman and software tycoon whose empire catered to the military, and the most damning evidence is the weapon that killed her: a handgun used solely in special operations where the double tap is the trademark of the most skilled assassins." "Madriani begins to have new fears about his client, a man who would rather sit on a legal time bomb than talk about his past and get a chance at acquittal. And yet more troubling, Madriani discovers that the victim was involved in a controversial government contract to combat terrorism by combing through the private computer records of millions of American citizens." Madriani faces a wilderness of mirrors in a courtroom battle where every witness can hide behind "national security," where information is power and digital information is absolute power. It is a war in which the scales of justice are being tipped by evasion, deceit - and murder. Finding the unvarnished truth has never been so elusive - or so dangerous.