When an accident at New York's Aurora Tower condo kills three workers, attorney Duncan Riley's workload becomes almost exclusively devoted to defending Roth Properties, the developer. The only other case on Duncan's plate is a pro bono case defending Rafael Nazario, a young guy from a public housing project, who, along with his grandmother, is about to be evicted because of a trumped up marijuana case.
Just as the eviction case is about to be dropped, someone murders the security guard who made the accusation against Rafael. A witness claims to have seen Rafael running from the murder, and he's immediately arrested. When Duncan learns that the security guard was employed by the firm that provides security for the Aurora Tower condo project, he expects to be pulled off the murder due to a conflict of interest. So he's perplexed when his boss tells him to defend Nazario on the murder charge, but to get a quick plea.
Duncan believes in his client's innocence, and wants to find out why Rafael is being framed. Meanwhile, a newspaper reporter investigating the Aurora Tower accident learns that Roth Properties is trying to force evictions from the public housing project so they can turn it into higher-rent apartments. Her investigation and Duncan's proceed on parallel tracks until finally the two compare notes and work together to expose the Roths' corruption.
Justin Peacock's believable legal thriller takes unscrupulous developers, unprincipled lawyers, and blood-thirsty security consultants and weaves them together into an exciting, terrific whole. I really enjoyed this book.
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