Lear's Daughter by Twist Phelan

About the book

Hannah Lear thinks her biggest problem of the hot summer will be taking care of a friend's cat. Before she knows it, the feline is the least of her worries, as Hannah fights to save her reputation, her law firm, and her family from destruction.

Hannah is an associate of her family's four-lawyer firm in the desert resort town of Pinnacle Peak. She is a good business lawyer, so it comes as a shock when an IPO she prepared is in big trouble. Three million dollars of investors' money was paid to a now-vanished seller for land that wasn't his to sell. Hannah is certain title insurance was ordered; if it wasn't, her firm is on the hook for the whole amount.

Shelby, Hannah's older sister and lifelong antagonist, is gleeful at her predicament. Richard, her aloof father and firm patriarch, is furious. (Hannah's mother, Elizabeth, also a lawyer, died when Hannah was born.)

Discrepancies in the documents help Hannah prove a title officer's participation in the fraud; he claims he was blackmailed. A car bomb and two murders thwart the police's identification of the culprit behind the scheme.

Richard puts Hannah to work on another IPO. She begins the due diligence -- verification of relevant information -- assisted by Cooper Smith, the law firm's computer consultant. Hannah is attracted to him but thinks the interest isn't mutual; Cooper is a former boyfriend of Shelby's.

John Becker, the new IPO client, seems dodgy to Hannah, but Richard ignores her concerns. Determined to prove herself, Hannah digs into Becker's background, discovering his father was a crooked real estate developer; after losing a large verdict to clients represented by Elizabeth Lear, he filed for bankruptcy, then killed himself. Hannah also uncovers evidence implicating Richard in jury-tampering and Shelby in unethical practices. Are the documents real or have they been manufactured by Becker?

Hannah finds proof Becker was behind the real estate IPO fraud. Becker kidnaps Shelby to ensure Hannah's silence until his IPO closes and he receives the offering proceeds. Hannah thinks she knows where Shelby is hidden; unable to go to the police, she plans a rescue via mountain bike through torrential rain. She locates her sister just as Becker, his fury building, decides to kill Shelby. Hannah hides Shelby in a nearby slot canyon, then decoys Becker to an abandoned mine shaft, where he falls to his death. Hannah then saves Shelby from drowning, barely pulling her sister from the crevasse before a flash flood hits.

Despite the rescue, Shelby's animosity toward Hannah remains; she blames Hannah for their mother's death. Hannah confronts Richard, wanting to know if he, too, holds her responsible. Facts fall into place, and Hannah realizes Richard is not her biological father. Stunned, she is unprepared for Cooper's romantic overture but decides to respond, freeing herself from others' bitterness about the past while understanding she has two families: the one into which she was born and the one she constructs herself, with ties of love and friendship able to create a bond as strong as -- or even stronger than -- the one forged by bloodlines.

Other Works: "Heir Apparent"

About the author

Twist Phelan earned her bachelor's and law degrees from Stanford University, completing her undergraduate studies in two years. While at Stanford Law School, she was Note Editor of the Stanford Law Review.

Lear's Daughter is the first novel in the Pinnacle Peak mystery series. It is this year's winner in the Mystery category of the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers' Colorado Gold Writing Contest. Phelan has completed another book in the series, featuring continuing characters but a different protagonist, again set in the Sonoran desert resort town of Pinnacle Peak.

Phelan's short stories have won several awards and appeared in various mystery short fiction magazines, including Red Herring, The Mystery Review, The Cozy Detective, and Kracked Mirror. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Crime Writers' Association of Australia, and Crime Writers of Canada.

Until her retirement in her early thirties, Twist was a plaintiff's trail lawyer specializing in complex cases. She is a member of several state and federal bars, including the United States Supreme Court. Phelan served as lead or sole counsel in many jury trials, and obtained several verdicts and settlements of more than a million dollars. An avid cyclist for the past ten years, she has mountain- and road-biked on four continents. A horsewoman all her life, she has competed in Western performance, hunter/jumper, and, most recently, polo.