Janet Moodie Series

The third novel by L.F. Robertson, starring death row attorney Janet Moodie.

When Greg Ferrante is found shot to death at the side of his swimming pool, suspicion turns immediately on his once-glamorous wife, Sunny, now worn down by years of living under his thumb. Sure, there’s no way she could have pulled the trigger, but soon she is arrested anyway, accused of hiring her daughter’s boyfriend to commit the crime. In a whirlwind trial, Sunny is convicted and sentenced to death.

And then, for a decade, she waits on death row, until Janet Moodie, appeals attorney, delves into the case. One thing Janet is sure of: Sunny is innocent. But her client is hiding something. Who is Sunny protecting–and is she really prepared to die to save them?

“John Grisham had better look to his laurels–there’s a new writer of legal thrillers in town.” Richard A. Lupoff, author of The Classic Car Killer

Howard Henley is not a killer. That seems obvious to lawyer Janet Moodie when she’s called in to work his appeal. Her new client was convicted of arranging the shooting of a drug dealer, but the man who pulled the trigger has always said Henley had nothing to do with it. So why is Henley the one on death row?

Janet’s new case takes her from the desperate world of prison gangs, where men are murdered as an initiation rite, to the courtroom, where a mental illness might mean the difference between life and death. Can she convince a judge of her client’s innocence before it’s too late?

Janet Moodie has spent years as a death row appeals attorney. Overworked and recently widowed, she’s had her fill of hopeless cases, and is determined that this will be her last. Her client is Marion ‘Andy’ Hardy, convicted along with his brother Emory of the rape and murder of two women. But Emory received a life sentence while Andy got the death penalty, labeled the ringleader despite his low IQ and Emory’s dominant personality.


Convinced that Andy’s previous lawyers missed mitigating evidence that would have kept him off death row, Janet investigates Andy’s past. She discovers a sordid and damaged upbringing, a series of errors on the part of his previous counsel, and most worrying of all, the possibility that there is far more to the murders than was first thought. Andy may be guilty, but does he deserve to die?