BREACH OF PROMISE
Perri O'Shaughnessy
Delacorte, Jun 1998, $23.95, 444 pp.
ISBN: 0-385-31872-3

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Going through a mid-life crisis, Mike Markov decides to leave his spouse for a younger woman, who happens to work in their company, which happens to be thebiggest employer in the Reno area. When Mike tells his wife Linda that he is filing for divorce, she hires Tahoe attorney Nina O'Reilly to insure she gets half of their multi-million dollar business empire. Mike, in turn, brings in his own top gun, slick lawyer Jeffrey Riesner.

Feeling as if she is not ready for the big leagues that Jeffrey swims in, Nina asks Winston Reynolds to assist her. Ultimately, the case goes to court where Nina and her cohorts find twists and turns, some caused by her own client. Still, the intrepid Nina and her crack staff give their client the best representation an attorney can provide.

BREACH OF PROMISE is a fabulous legal thriller because of the adept writing of Perri O'Shaughnessy to microscopically look at a male's mid-life crisis from various perspectives without placing blame. Though the story line bogs down a bit during the jury deliberations, the overall plot is action-packed and fast-paced with numerous twists. Still, this series is made great by the eccentric characters (Nina, her assistant Sandy, and her lover Paul) who bring real personalities to a sub-genre normally populated by Herculean individuals. This gripping novel and Ms. O'Shaughnessy's previous tales (see OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE, etc.) are all fun to read because the morality is not so clear cut.

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