Joanne Kilbourn

When Libby Hogarth, the go-to lawyer for the rich or famous who have committed heinous crimes, comes to Regina to deliver the prestigious Mellohawk Lecture, she is met with a torrent of hostility and misinformation. Libby Hogarth had successfully defended Jared Delio, a wildly popular national radio host, against charges of sexual abuse brought against him by three Regina women. Her no-holds-barred cross-examination of the women stirred up a rage that still smolders.

When Joanne Shreve’s former student, Val Masluk, writes the biography of acclaimed novelist Steven Brooks, Val once again becomes part of Joanne’s life. The biography is already raising troubling questions about Brooks’s past, and the wedding of Brooks’s daughter and Joanne’s son is scheduled for the day before the biography is published. Both Joanne and her former student are haunted by memories of the seminar that led to the deaths of two people and the murder conviction of a third.