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Malice Prepense

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

Forget about Grisham, Turow, and all those other scribbling ex-lawyers. The best writer of legal mysteries working today is Kate Wilhelm of Eugene, Oregon.

When he was a kid, Teddy Wendover had an accident that left him stunted at the mental age of eight. Physically, he's six-foot-two and twenty-eight years old, but he acts and thinks just like a little boy. Could this big little boy be a killer?

Someone has murdered one of Oregon's congressmen, and it doesn't seem to be a coincidence that this politician led the field trip during which Teddy's accident occurred almost twenty years ago. Nor does it seem to be coincidental that the killer left rocks strewn about the murder site, rocks just like the ones Teddy plays with. And the only thing that's certain is that the person who cast the first of these stones is not without sin.

Malice Prepense is the most complicated and most engrossing case yet for Barbara Holloway, the dynamic star of Death Qualified and The Best Defense.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from July 1, 1996
      Wilhelm doesn't fool around: she writes clean, clear prose about real people in sometimes loopy legal situations. Returning from The Best Defense (1994), Eugene, Ore., lawyer Barbara Holloway and her 75-year-old father and partner, Frank, are hired to defend strapping Teddy Wendover, a severely retarded 28-year-old accused of murdering a congressman. Teddy, stuck at the mental age of eight after a childhood accident, is a wonderfully realized character, sweet without a drop of sentimentality. As the Holloways fight the legal-psychiatric establishment's efforts to institutionalize Teddy, who lives with his loving, well-off parents, the prosecution switches its focus to Teddy's father, Ted senior. It turns out that Ted's wife, Carolyn, had carried on a 15-year affair with the late congressman, providing the DA (and a pro-prosecution judge) with motive. Meanwhile, there are two other murders that Barbara is sure are connected with this one, but the judge blocks any linkage. The Holloways' investigation uncovers a large real estate development scheme (and links to the other murders), Barbara falls in love again (suddenly but believably) and there's a corker of a trial. As Wilhelm spins her riveting tale, she not only makes the legal system comprehensible and compelling but also makes her readers care about her characters, particularly the efficient yet vulnerable Barbara. Author tour.

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  • English

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