Courting Trouble may not be mystery author Lisa Scottoline's best outing (try her Edgar-winning Final Appeal or Legal Tender for a taste of what
she's really capable of), but it's certain to whet the appetites of
readers who haven't yet joined her legion of fans -- especially those readers
who like to make believe they're smart, beautiful, likably self-deprecating
career women. Redheaded knockout Anne Murphy joins the all-woman Philadelphia law firm of Rosato & Associates (familiar to faithful Scottoline readers from previous
novels Legal Tender, Mistaken Identity and The Vendetta Defense),
and what an entrance she makes.
Anne
has brought a big money dot-com client to the firm -- Gil Martin, an
acquaintance from law school. He's being hit with a sexual harassment suit
by an employee, and Anne believes Gil's proclamations of innocence. She has won
almost every pre-trial motion, and to gear up for the trial she decides to head
out of Philly to the shore for the Fourth of July weekend. Leaving her cat in
the care of a woman she met at her health club, she rents a Mustang and cruises
out of town.
When she picks up a Philadelphia newspaper the next morning, she's jolted
back to a past she tried to leave behind. LAWYER FOUND MURDERED, blares the
headline, right above Anne's own law school photo. Only Anne knows she's not
dead, and she decides to keep it that way to stay alive and catch the killer who
drove her to Philadelphia -- Kevin Satorno, the man convicted of stalking and
assaulting her, an obsessed man who's escaped from a California prison.
Anne sneaks back to Philly, back into her three-story townhouse, back to the
murder scene. She's positive the true victim was her catsitter, an innocent,
lonely artist
pulled randomly into Kevin Satorno's deadly obsession. When Anne's co-workers show up at her
place, she decides to let them in on her secret so they can help her -- even
though she's pretty sure they all hate her guts. But people change, and
relationships change (an important point that echoes in several subplots). Anne
lets herself open up to the women who are all that stands between her and Kevin Satorno, and begins to discover the real joy of friendship. And when she lets
her feelings show for her opposing counsel, she discovers that being alone isn't
always best for someone who's been hurt too many times.
The plotting in Courting Trouble is a little heavy, but it's forgivable if
for nothing else than being the vehicle that introduces impulsive, funny Anne
Murphy. The patriotic hooker scene at a cheater's-hotel is a hoot, and her
encounter with Rosato associate Mary's parents is warm and fuzzy without being
cloying. Repeated jokes about Anne's addiction to Blahniks (talk about your shoe
horse, this woman), her kitty Mel's many incarnations (among them Sphinx Cat and
Attack Cat), and her hilarious "Mental Notes" to herself make this a novel worth
kicking your shoes off, putting your feet up, and settling in with a box of
chocolates for.