Firm Ambitions

By Michael A. Kahn

"Rachel remains one of the more engaging sleuths on the mystery scene." —Publishers Weekly

After the death of her father, attorney Rachel Gold has returned to her hometown of St. Louis to spend more time with her mother. The savvy and beautiful Rachel, who made a name for herself in complex corporate litigation in Chicago, finds herself enmeshed in Landau v. Landau, a high-stakes divorce case far nastier than any of her former lawsuits. And, as she will soon find out, far deadlier.

Rachel's client is Eileen Landau, the best friend of her sister Ann. Eileen and Ann are just two of many wealthy, bored housewives who get their kicks three days a week in an aerobics classes conducted by the handsome fitness guru, Andros, at an upscale gym. Eileen, however, gets some additional kicks once or twice a week with Andros at an upscale hotel.

Shortly after his last tryst with Eileen, Andros is found dead. The coroner determines the cause of death as cyanide poisoning. The trail of clues leads not to Eileen but to Ann, Rachel's sister, who was having her own affair with Andros.

Suddenly, Rachel has a personal stake in the case. But as she works her way through the list of angry wives seduced and scorned by Andros, she realizes that sex may not have been the motive behind his seductions. Indeed, Andros may have been doing the bidding of a puppet master far more dangerous—someone with few qualms about eliminating a semi-incompetent accomplice, and none about eliminating a competent lawyer whose investigation threatens a multi-million-dollar criminal enterprise.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sourcebooks
• Release date: Jul 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781464204432

Michael A. Kahn

Michael Kahn is a trial lawyer by day and an author at night. He wrote his first novel, Grave Designs, on a challenge from his wife Margi, who got tired of listening to the same answer whenever she asked him about a book he was reading. "Not bad," he would say, "but I could write a better book than that." "Then write one," she finally said, "or please shut up." So he shut up—no easy task for an attorney—and then he wrote one. Kahn is the award-winning author of: eleven Rachel Gold novels; three standalone novels: Played!, The Sirena Quest, and, under the pen name Michael Baron, The Mourning Sexton, and several short stories. In addition to his day job as a trial lawyer, he is an adjunct professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, where he teaches a class on censorship and free expression. Married to his high school sweetheart, he is the father of five and the grandfather of, so far, seven.

Reviews for Firm Ambitions

[ecw0647 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hmmmm. How to describe the first chapter of this book. Rachel has moved to St. Louis where she has started a new firm. Her first client is, well, how shall we put this. The case involves a will, an irate wife, fellatio, Big Macs with special sauce, Golden Showers, Visa statements, and the threat of photographs. It’s also very funny.Although she has sworn never to take another divorce case, Rachel is persuaded by Anne, her sister, to help Eileen Landau. As she soon learns, Eileen is having an affair with Andros, a local fitness instructor, otherwise spelled g.i.g.o.l.o. When Andros turns up dead in a hotel room where he and Eileen were having a tryst and Eileen admits she skipped after watching him in the throes of being poisoned, Rachel knows she has a problem, especially since Eileen took along Andros’s briefcase that contained some rather explicit pictures of the two of them. But it turns out that Rachel’s sister is also in a photo album kept by the dead man and she is charged with his murder.Rachel’s investigation begins to turn up all sorts of complications. Good mystery. Light on the legal side. Benny continues to amuse and delight.