Excerpt from Her Kind of Case by Jeanne Winer, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Her enormous oak desk was covered with stacks of paper, each one clamoring for attention. The number of them was reassuring. Unlike many of the lawyers that had been practicing as long as Lee, thirty-four years, she wasn't at all tired of the work, wasn't longing for the day she could shut her office door, hand in her keys, and pursue a lifelong dream of sailing around the world, volunteering at an orphanage in Mumbai, or whatever it was people thought they had to do before they got too old. Lee was doing it right now. She'd had two stable passions since law school: lawyering and karate, defending people and kicking them.

After years of practice, she'd become one of the preeminent criminal defense attorneys in the Boulder–Denver area and had attained the rank of a master in Tae Kwon Do when she was awarded her fifth-degree black belt. There was nothing more she aspired to do, except to keep on doing what she loved. Which meant doing it well or not at all, and no matter how much it cost, concealing any signs of effort. Someday her mind or body might betray her, but for now she was the consummate professional flashing that easy, what-me-worry smile as the sweat dripped or poured down the sides of her expensive silk blouse. Look real, stay lovely, never age.

For no good reason—it was 7:36—the wooden clock on her desk emitted one of its gentle gong-like sounds that miraculously failed to annoy her. A present from Paul who somehow always knew what she'd like and what she'd dump into the nearest wastebasket. The sound was supposed to wake her up to the present moment. Mostly it just reminded her of Paul and the past. Like half the people in Boulder (well, maybe not half), Paul had been a Buddhist. When he meditated, it was quiet and peaceful so Lee could get lots of work done and they could still be in the same room—unless he was gone for a few months on one of his high-altitude mountaineering trips, which was also fine.

Unlike most couples, there had been a profound lack of noise in their relationship. Neither of them was afraid of fighting. There simply wasn't much to fight about. When she missed Paul, it was often just that silent harmony, the unexpected happiness of two self-contained people living together and doing exactly as they pleased. Had she taken that happiness for granted? No, she thought, never. Then caught herself and blew out an exasperated breath. The myriad ways a self-employed professional could procrastinate.

Time to get serious or she'd end up working till midnight. With the barest of sighs, she picked up a new yellow highlighter, grabbed a sheaf of papers from the top of the nearest stack and settled into reviewing the contents: a warrant signed by a district court judge to search her client's home computer for evidence of child pornography. The client, a real estate broker, had been busted a few weeks ago after arranging to meet an undercover officer whom he believed was a twelve-year old girl named Candy.

Candy? The name alone screamed, "I am a trap and you are the stupidest mark on the planet if you actually think I'm real."

As was often the case, the client had a sweet clueless wife who, at least so far, was standing by her man. When Lee mentioned the possibility of probation, his wife cried, "But that's for guilty people!" Which is why you ought to ditch him, Lee thought, but of course kept her mouth shut, her face impassive. Dissemble or find another profession.

But it was impossible to concentrate. Her usual self-discipline had gone rogue. She rubbed her eyes and pushed the papers away from her. Too many distractions: the new pain in her neck, her upcoming sixtieth birthday, inconvenient memories, the fact that the police were using smaller and smaller fonts in their arrest reports.

She heard footsteps outside her door again and decided to chance it. If it was the new borderline, she could always pretend she was late, that she was on her way to the airport for a last-minute vacation in Patagonia— sorry for the earlier-than-expected betrayal. As she rose from her chair, Lee could see a white business card slide under the door. A salesperson, she guessed, wanting her to switch malpractice carriers or add some new eye-catching links to her admittedly barebones website.

Excerpted from Her Kind of Case by Jeanne Winer. Copyright © 2018 by Jeanne Winer. Excerpted by permission of Bancroft Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.