Lisa Scottoline novels

When prosecutor Vicki Allegretti arrives at a rowhouse to meet a confidential informant, she finds herself in the wrong place at the wrong time -- and is almost shot to death. She barely escapes with her life, but cannot save the two others gunned down before her disbelieving eyes. Stunned and heartbroken, Vicki tries to figure out how a routine meeting on a minor case became a double homicide. Vicki's suspicions take her to Devil's Corner, a city neighborhood teetering on the brink of ruin -- thick with broken souls, innocent youth, and a scourge that preys on both. But the deeper Vicki probes, the more she becomes convinced that the murders weren't random and the killers were more ruthless than she thought. When another murder thrusts Vicki together with an unlikely ally, she buckles up for a wild ride down a dangerous street -- and into the cross-hairs of a conspiracy as powerful as it is relentless.

This time, justice is blonde. . . . New York Times bestselling author Lisa Scottoline delivers a riveting page-turner about love and murder that starts in the elite chambers of a sexy female judge and ends on the cold, gritty streets of Philadelphia. Cate Fante is strong and smart, but when she becomes a federal judge, even she wonders if she can do the job justice. She's in her thirties, so she feels as though she's joining the world's most exclusive retirement village. She worries inwardly that she only looks the part, in a designer suit donned like overpriced armor. After all, a job described in the United States Constitution would intimidate anybody. But Cate keeps her doubts a secret. And, as it happens, much else. For she leads a dark double life that she hides from everyone, even her best friend. Then a high-profile case in her courtroom explodes into a shocking murder-suicide, and it blasts her cover wide open. Overnight the tabloids tell her secrets, her boyfriend dumps her, and her new career hangs in tatters. But Cate's troubles are only beginning. An enemy no one anticipated sends her running for her life — embarking on a journey that begins in the mystery of her own childhood, where she first learned to lie. She'll have to fight her way back to the truth, or die trying. Dirty Blonde is Lisa Scottoline's most suspenseful and gripping thriller to date. Mixing poignancy with her trademark wit and wonderfully compelling characters, it showcases her remarkable talents as never before, and questions whether law and justice are always the same thing.