London: Headline (Hodder), (1997) dj. Hardcover first edition - The first novel by this former defense attorney introducing Boulder, Colorado attorney Lucinda Hayes. Just months after she's left her job in the D.A.'s office to head the Boulder Rape Crisis Center, she is leaned on by her former teacher, now a Colorado Supreme Court Justice, to handle the habeas corpus appeal of Jason Smiley who has been sentenced to death for raping and murdering his lover. Smiley insists he's innocent, and as Cinda casts around for legal grounds that might give her client a chance, she begins to turn up evidence that indicates that maybe Smiley might be telling the truth about the crime. Of course. Kirkus called this "an audacious, unsettling mixture of legal suspense and morality play." The UK edition preceded the US edition and is the true first. 310 pp. ISBN: 0-747220077.