After Dark (1995)

With the exception of one garden-variety psychopath, every important character in Phillip Margolin's novel has a law degree. Most of the minor characters too. If you suspect that's apt to make for an ingenious plot and some remarkably turgid dialogue, maybe it's time to take the LSAT and join the parade. Anyhow, here's the After Dark deal: Somebody has taken to bumping off law clerks and blowing up justices of Oregon's state Supreme Court. Naturally, the rascals are all either married to or sleeping with one another (although rarely both), so almost everybody's a suspect. Particularly Abbie Griffen, a brilliant, gorgeous prosecutor whose rat of an estranged husband, a judge, delights in turning loose the deadly murderers she's convicted. (In Margolin's world, all female attorneys are knockouts.) This angers and frightens our heroine, particularly since one killer who is freed on a technicality seems to be stalking her. But did it make her mad enough to blow His Honor sky-high in his own Mercedes? Ruthless prosecutor Chuck Geddes thinks so; idealistic defense attorney Matthew Reynolds (secretly in love with his client) thinks not. And the trial is on. B