Fatal Verdict - Peter O'Mahoney - Thomas & Mercer

''There's a hurricane brewing over Beaufort, South Carolina. And in the calm before the storm, big-city lawyer Dean Lincoln finds himself defending Haley Finch, a beautiful young woman accused of murdering her older boyfriend. Her supposed motive? He'd just won big on the lottery--and then changed his will in her favor. In the South, with Haley's estranged husband suspiciously missing for the past two years and their marital funds dwindling fast, that's motive enough. But Lincoln knows nothing is ever quite as it seems down here, and once again finds himself scratching beneath the cracked veneer of the famous Southern charm. In Beaufort, money and influence all too often outweigh justice, so if Lincoln is going to dig right down to the truth, he'll have to risk everything he loves...''--