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For readers who like their heroes flawed, their lawyers cynical, and their body count rising, this is a darkly funny California noir thriller that combines the high-stakes contemporary tension of John Grisham with Raymond Chandler's world-weary vision of Los Angeles.
LOS ANGELES, 1992
Charlie Trust is a thirty-five-year-old burnout from a white-shoe Virginia law firm who’s squatting in a friend’s Malibu beach house and wondering what comes next. Eight years of grinding through bitter divorces has left him cynical about marriage, lawyers, and humanity in general. The last thing he wants is a client.
Then the friend who loaned him the house asks for a little favor. Talk with Emma Scott, a woman trapped in a divorce from one of Hollywood's most powerful television producers. Just one conversation. Just some friendly advice. How could Charlie possibly say no?
But it turns out that Emma Scott isn't just looking for casual advice. She's sitting on five boxes of financial records that could destroy her powerful television producer husband. She realizes that what she’s discovered is a sophisticated money laundering operation with connections to the Japanese Yakuza, one washing hundreds of millions in dirty money through Hollywood. Now she's terrified, and she should be.
When Emma disappears and bodies start dropping, Charlie finds himself caught between a judge who demands he surrender Emma’s documents, Hollywood lawyers who play for keeps, and organized crime enforcers who don't leave loose ends. With no backup but a crusty eighty-year-old retired legal legend, an even older private investigator who swears he was Chandler’s inspiration for Philip Marlowe, and the loaded Glock he keeps by his bedside, Charlie’s just trying to survive long enough to find a way out of what that simple favor for a friend has gotten him into.
Set against the sun-soaked beaches of Malibu and the dark underbelly of 1990s Hollywood, CONTEMPT OF COURT is a razor-sharp legal thriller that asks, How far would you go to protect a client's secrets? And what if doing the right thing and defending your client could get you killed?
"Charlie Trust is a fresh voice in legal thrillers. He's a true noir hero."
Genre: Mystery
LOS ANGELES, 1992
Charlie Trust is a thirty-five-year-old burnout from a white-shoe Virginia law firm who’s squatting in a friend’s Malibu beach house and wondering what comes next. Eight years of grinding through bitter divorces has left him cynical about marriage, lawyers, and humanity in general. The last thing he wants is a client.
Then the friend who loaned him the house asks for a little favor. Talk with Emma Scott, a woman trapped in a divorce from one of Hollywood's most powerful television producers. Just one conversation. Just some friendly advice. How could Charlie possibly say no?
But it turns out that Emma Scott isn't just looking for casual advice. She's sitting on five boxes of financial records that could destroy her powerful television producer husband. She realizes that what she’s discovered is a sophisticated money laundering operation with connections to the Japanese Yakuza, one washing hundreds of millions in dirty money through Hollywood. Now she's terrified, and she should be.
When Emma disappears and bodies start dropping, Charlie finds himself caught between a judge who demands he surrender Emma’s documents, Hollywood lawyers who play for keeps, and organized crime enforcers who don't leave loose ends. With no backup but a crusty eighty-year-old retired legal legend, an even older private investigator who swears he was Chandler’s inspiration for Philip Marlowe, and the loaded Glock he keeps by his bedside, Charlie’s just trying to survive long enough to find a way out of what that simple favor for a friend has gotten him into.
Set against the sun-soaked beaches of Malibu and the dark underbelly of 1990s Hollywood, CONTEMPT OF COURT is a razor-sharp legal thriller that asks, How far would you go to protect a client's secrets? And what if doing the right thing and defending your client could get you killed?
"Charlie Trust is a fresh voice in legal thrillers. He's a true noir hero."
Genre: Mystery