Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Whistleblower
    Whistleblower
    Whistleblower
    Ebook401 pages6 hours

    Whistleblower

    By Richard Hicks

    5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Mike Stratton, a disbarred attorney, recently released from a federal prison, wakes up in jail in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California, his boyhood hometown, suffering from amnesia and charged with the rape and murder of Diane Lawson. Her half-naked body was found in his Winnebago, parked at a local campground. Stratton is found next to her; unconscious, and with a head and hand injury—his blood alcohol level off the scale. Stratton´s last memory is arriving unannounced at his Encino home, where he discovered his wife, Shiela, playing house with Gordon Heller—his best friend, former law partner, and a co-participant in the insider-trading scheme that sent Stratton to prison.

    When C. J. Hagerty, the feisty and eccentric female attorney appointed to defend Stratton, wins a bail hearing, Stratton sets out to discover if he, or someone else, killed Diane Lawson. Her twin sister, Laura, stood to inherit a sizable estate. Her ex-husband, whom she dumped, was still in love with her. And then there is her boss, Martin Kolb, President and CEO of Quella Industries, a high-flying local defense contractor, who Diane threatened with a "whistleblower” lawsuit.

    Set against the background of colorful San Diego, and filled with surprises, this intelligent, tightly-crafted murder mystery and courtroom drama, will leave readers hanging on until the final plot-twisting denouement.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherXlibris US
    Release dateJun 25, 2007
    ISBN9781453506691
    Whistleblower
    Author

    Richard Hicks

    Richard Hicks is the author of seven novels, including the award-winning Eddie DeSilva mystery, Crossing Borders. A former trial attorney and avid sailor, he resides with his wife in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California, just north of San Diego, California. www.richardhicksauthor.com

    Read more from Richard Hicks

    Related to Whistleblower

    Related ebooks

    Mystery For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Community Of Peers

      Feb 10, 2021

      After the war, I travelled to a village in the south of the province. It was my intention to vacation for the weekend in an unknown land. I followed a small river that was alternately green beneath the foliage of the forest and blue while it coursed

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Freshening

      Sep 15, 2018

      My cashier’s black hair was beautiful. Though not unlike mine, it was shinier and thicker, and hung glamorously down to her waist. It looked strong, too, like Christopher Reeve’s in the Superman movies. A strand of Superman’s silvery hair could hold

      21 min read

    • Article

      Letter to My Son

      Jul 4, 2015

      Letter to My Son
      30 min read

    • Article

      Judges

      Mar 10, 2024

      The doctors assured me the shrapnel in my leg would do no further harm if they “let sleeping dogs lie,” or at least less harm than trying to take it out would cause. “Hey,” I asked them. “What if it decides to cut its way out all on its own?” My grea

      12 min read

    • Article

      On The Case

      Mar 15, 2022

      On The Case
      2 min read

    • Article

      Dead Good Job

      May 11, 2023

      Dead Good Job
      3 min read

    • Article

      Hollywood, Ending

      Feb 13, 2018

      Hollywood, Ending
      7 min read

    • Article

      Where Night Stops

      Jan 15, 2018

      Where Night Stops
      6 min read

    • Article

      Freedom Rings

      Nov 25, 2019

      Freedom Rings
      6 min read

    • Article

      My Cellie Was the Father I Never Had

      Jun 13, 2019

      Editor’s note: This week, we’re running a special Life Inside series about fathers and incarceration. Read the previous essays about next-cell neighbors, dancing in the prison gym and a surprise meeting. I was born in 1964 on the South Side of Chicag

      5 min read

    • Article

      Exodus

      Sep 15, 2018

      My exodus occurred after years wandering the wilderness of my hometown. For bread to live, for bread to leave, I worked a part-time gig at the Oregonian’s downtown insert facility, stacking pallet after pallet of inky-ass newspapers. The day in quest

      15 min read

    • Article

      Speedboat

      Mar 24, 2022

      Nobody died that year. Nobody prospered. There were no births or marriages. Seventeen reverent satires were written – disrupting a cliché and, presumably, creating a genre. That was a dream, of course, but many of the most important things, I fi nd,

      14 min read

    • Article

      Before You Melt Into The Sea

      Feb 3, 2022

      Before You Melt Into The Sea
      11 min read

    • Article

      The Bullet in My Arm

      Sep 6, 2018

      The Bullet in My Arm
      13 min read

    • Article

      Above Santa Cruz

      Jul 2, 2019

      Above Santa Cruz
      5 min read

    • Article

      Waiting To Be Important

      Mar 19, 2021

      Waiting To Be Important
      3 min read

    • Article

      Waiting To Be Important

      Mar 19, 2021

      Waiting To Be Important
      3 min read

    • Article

      Robert C. Koehler: The Cynic's Monkey Wrench

      Jul 28, 2022

      If you depart from an “us vs. them” philosophy of life, your first confrontation is likely to be with the cynics. Last week, for instance, I wrote about the weekend I spent, a decade ago, getting handgun training from the NRA — and what I learned, wh

      4 min read

    • Article

      Prohibition

      Sep 10, 2021

      It had been ten days since my last fix. I knew what I was going to do was wrong, but unless you knew the yearning that your body exerts, the internal pull which strangles your very soul into submission, then you cannot judge me. Yes, it was wrong. Ye

      15 min read

    • Article

      The Turn

      Aug 14, 2019

      HERE’S a story. In college I entered the spring semester of my freshman year on academic probation. There wasn’t one reason this happened. There were many. I had signed up for a computer science class called Digital Security with no programming knowl

      5 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Mar 4, 2024

      Security confiscated the bracelet I’d slipped into my wallet but not the thin black sweater I wore as I walked out of Macy’s. The sweater still had its price tag and was so soft it soothed whoever was whispering “more, more” in my ears adorned with s

      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Whistleblower

    5/5

    7 ratings3 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Fresh out of prison for insider trading, disbarred lawyer Mike Stratton returns to his Encino home only to discover his wife with Gordon Heller, his former partner and best friend who was a co-participant in the insider trading scheme. After attacking Heller, Stratton is found by police in his travel trailer in Cardiff-by-the Sea, his hometown. In his trailer, the body of 35-year-old Diane Lawson is also found, which leads to his arrest in her murder. The problem? He didn't do it and has amnesia about what happened prior to and after his arrival in Cardiff-by-the Sea.Hot shot lawyer C. J. Hagerty is appointed to defend Stratton. But Stratton wants to find out who killed Lawson and conducts his own investigation figuring that's the only way to get out of the mess he's in. He enlists the help of contacts from his lawyer past and from his prison days, including chess-playing Sheriff Sam Wiggens.Author Richard Hicks has written a finely crafted murder mystery that takes readers on a roller-coaster ride with Mike Stratton. This book will keep readers on the edge of their seats waiting to find out what will happen next. Hicks leaves readers with a truly satisfying ending. I would recommend the book to all lovers of courtroom drama and murder mysteries.
    • 5/5
      Whistleblower by Richard Hicks is a book I had a hard time putting down. From the first line of the book, "Even with my eyes closed I knew where I was", until right before the unlikely reveal, I found myself asking "what happens next?" The book revolves around Mike Stratton, an attorney who wakes up in jail. Suffering from amnesia, he wakes up in jail to find that he has been charged with the rape and murder and murder of a woman named Diane Lawson. His story gets more and more complicated as the book goes on. Normally this would be a bit annoying, but as the book is so well-written, the entire read is very believable.A thrilling story laced with stunning character development made this a wonderful read. I recommend Whistleblower to anyone who enjoys a good mystery or suspense book.
    • 5/5
      Whistleblower is an Eric Hoffer Award winning novel written by retired trial attorney Richard Hicks. The story starts with Mike Stratton waking up in jail. He has no memory of why he is there and soon finds out he has been charged with the rape and murder of Diane Lawson. Although he can’t remember anything about that night, he knows he could not have done these hideous acts and sets out to find the real killer before it’s too late. As if that isn’t enough, we discover that he was just released from prison where he served time for insider trading and was also disbarred because of this conviction. He arrives home to find his wife shacking up with his ex-partner and realizes his own son barely knows him. With no job and no family, Mike could really use a break. Instead, he ends up right back in jail and it becomes the job of attorney CJ Haggerty to get him out.I started reading this book and it didn’t take me long to see why it had won an award. Richard Hicks is a talented author and has composed an intricate murder mystery that I could easily see right up there on the best seller list with the likes of Sue Grafton and John Grisham. The characters are well-developed, as well as believable, and the suspense kept building until I was reading and turning pages at a furious pace so I could find out who did it as quickly as possible. Seriously, I couldn’t figure out who the murderer was and it was frustrating me to no end. That right there takes talent as I find many mysteries these days are just a bit predictable and even a bit boring on occasion.If you like a great mystery you will love this book and I highly recommend it to anyone who appreciates a well-developed, well-written story that will leave you on the edge of your seat until the very last page.

    Book preview

    Whistleblower - Richard Hicks

    Iebook_preview_excerpt.html}[#בVs F2&e਒"i)@#QQ_֠=hUڀ0~߈T[3_~/z7|⒆SQOEb_쫶eq_<6R\NoUU| ꋾNC{)teя!1eOo(®o}oCxQ?A~. E/v/E%x<]<)(KJ۟c)kmbvS!UU/7ןpJc?m!}?'d. Clס)v)ukaW(! y>rx e]%|;*8 BkHQZvOc6zrK`\َ;)5M.xH{#[٭cyqU&}9ѵz&˨7Xvm?9(Jpi) MG :sJ N{0h&*$&Ţ^TSWu<՜mL ͌hu*J4΢rM~5ҎB1y@9F>Au [{1N0 dd}Ҝ@a͋ɽf/(_fȩ|($Ϊ6 v;պܫY1){Pr i@7B3m E\P< Ek[|x}[i\@ƒԎ)9jUK%919*5+z"P>bvT RUU,"@O SG}D_څb?/Ϻlg8 -iD{|YyjBLhC񱭸sk U|\.C?yG%NZB1U~)esqm^ ʹ-^ؑXV[g̼~{ޯ$z2RnNp |ZȲEw.@wj<qv\bú 'KMxLBMov26ij]ӏc?w"ixtAxh<ɕI;9?mYnju30PJ+\Fw] /kRUzGSyAr06ϟ' 7IR%K&巯Em&׽m/ᓏݫ[Eu/z8{Advs7E>l.2?w&׿Ћ=)e8Y6@s Nfity,РyŸwwIIP"rTJ7rΚ&: 7wj=(X;U">}3dfwݫ7B H2-kGu?'y%6UU1Ȟܢw bT=}x^|{ps:y _UF R" ͞KI&K0?rLMSNLE(vX=FF~9byʔdQrY"B W9S"IƟDQ>qwEw8zh|NP>yI1TaI>_MP Ib`.O?{;Jl##}g#_ BCydp@ä'ĕ瓨"kA:<Q:}j +8DZhoʓ7W&`YfUm]z8GYdb-{r%,x`7WTZ"pbv|Tԯ>jl.>$qاr](nL=v,t :ܷD$'.(I>y6ZTPBR^ b2'A%(/p*%lwjd9ޜYՒLJ#>~N;x"Π ܰ|Iui)yDLG$(,m1#%/c7uŻXUԿ3^ vc7X1z`5x>oKsN_0JjֱF`E*̰9B$|vW*42r\ u7LI"'^leĔXh$z\6׷H8.t8ZX&Mga>w m-BHQy&I:C{2$Q*C!Ʃbȫ?Nb~9[ۖ;&[-Oj'4@pyBPC|f$g˰1}=5H05dt)?E.L:.>ҭ}T'D~QD [R>,3u,s lbiDJݿ#puN|)Qz]M4m-\/ )2+'N +0X^ fUhN-pz^Bp/F WKC ,ӈ:lOq23cr(R:\ʩf`Rq}"#b>aWBBtQ9)ƳPdCǗ ٙE /iPH($yPWVZ$@g_CU5\ױ[x#L(K^"_F~)~٧J&R[UCKT.aw^qsz[_ܢ&N{ 3(!.mÎM.kZ{Lg VVEE92]QՋg& Ynb6H `Dba %01I1.eㅬ2V%6dY&Cg$Б-ԔUE3R,-̡ {; BGm,5Ů_6_՝1DwwB/56߲̩1<.[qYOՄsz⦜X,刏T. ny4^H ֢tGbBJV̄+ݴf/'kwi щ~џpmBn>)ԅ7meݱkȬLg^%Ic8I6r" W+X6I2FUOs/$&iAn0VDQz^NQ\/}Jx!67 &( nX/ ^ErduUQѽ%uFg-y1UhQDZd ,cK㩋EBi]rR@%KL-纈mfFl OK;9A%E Wݕ==c(Jѐ00xT|7,3'B_E"zda/wtń9\HʧJ. X8zIQns[*uN`к#_FE|O\ w%D!OG|6.Xu8 +*ic!*0byfj΀}  e.B4nD)7Wq K fJvVp6p烸ϛX%_@QS2Tego[A,'~>% #D^BQcWy7$1j|Ef/UZE eDޅ>`pZgS{= Gg7G s^l1INDsxP̒Mդ?eJJ$RW*klvFxRې~`bGy f3Ȓ-I DUT,=U-: sj5I䂄^S1ZyXHјZ:1!?6]U57kg6 P X&ܗBV g'l9-2Ib ݋G(wWhk ` KkhלG9|8 ȷ6\S/+Ș APRNi,G6 #JN,#1:RJs"w,xfiK2$A=}VNЛl4 LJ0 Z 'FӢTwmWIQ̵aW "XO]ŲƓڐ5=n'Sis5>Fg|pY'##)Ò E錖^ٔa҅ƝZp /p R 03f5>G*Y[΅&#auqi8eWX7SnÂ2ю??6eT_hCK]W/ J+lFH *Ak#ZdVA$v  fT:5TjFQXLÜXiJwFuERCP5e[\,s PfC^i1~K{Rs@Qؕ7Nώ.bwr z\r'ÙȈ}$-ptS EծжӨ ? :qýhKC؉wm}Xa]zZt'K{acH` `yĥ̗%>RcCj(Z d/-Q@CVj]([n0{bM'#ر+iĐ=%.(_7v>*uY:Z7cjWۿ;{OkLg-EX!eZ1Ȋea&ݨFx<1GIdxj>әڰ݊v??xf}]ǎ~"LZaE;KN5kCى d8<+j+Ii m˨)ʑ o}#rM]Դv.N]v ŐC證q@N@^;;V+c ue|Ww .2^H; ^yᡉֳ9 Q'+LmKST5s.5j=Ni(w(N7Yz()C%C%kM;Ċg Kuw7 qѮptOiF]Ўt~v=^z+@oT:<bMzCo_UA L7vglHG#UUP =Qm{ ƏH竒z!Q+p%S)fxQ=x{NwJ>ғq5j'(KT.1Dj=P+P8@j8rc"(a!# z>:!;NrhPs2gy(5MKYʻ!`3?0' c RQ ؠLϗFefFmP`0栃nF) `('q hFkֈr7 B֜3n`~O8G*}"hvʕ{kWڀS c^I$a0o1Ue=E-UCcٗ#'L`erЪrNpK$-$@JQ$\3OFqCM&`=x5l\sXTU٩˔U0чdq׫q]$F  aȏ,0(ܡSkW^esZ+qT89:R:8Iq.G'm> C!HVĔ*=]É9_) Y#Z2EY  z*+!y¹W rVA9S !$26E'z-CACtZϞtVR=]HA[ƶE0{#gu 3f tp16Nΐ5!ǰ>j% QcP'7DJߌN٘Q9M .r$Qd%uV\0jщ$SB504.ADYk[0?AЃcz9\'| lDDvvw5Wgq-W+"f٦Zi6r)53Kr|.!;d,nӭTܹ8Ba -g!|[H).'|d곎hZ jϻrbD^a]JEV$X~&6lXԻh`8JC(Gr-z_5)T(E58ΰwo)32M'c5%: hZNo1bNHq*d Rw#@2H]5"R|ʳ7B>M%.q&CGŊfY6ŋs5ϸ|$&}g:YMsɦ E9ֻ"!:pO=z9`mǗkƦ^H@Ұ7}AaD!(xɗSq֭;{- "1Mإ[ :WD$;b=U}3/NS[J8Z`PqꝚ6tfMX-\>ɻ>7O.Yuĭy -Kb c()恢3f 663Hxj= t'l)0ol|1}AVUoHTڋ)+lb5+_Ȟ hW#UN9j}z2E8g[PJ-"6=r+tH%6g)̍R-yE1DZ Ne5EJA䗐}şImԱ,Fӫ% M|2*U0&4y`yvq`)sz$gӟRE1ʚKPt9A]bE?)caŀ_?p]yW\k8tz+P0AX_AC FHI 6ziPg6,2w&-9+ fFyEBxlDAsԥy\ݍ~U{zLvɭ.0 i#/gu7C!,!/o4r>p$ ʾֹeB4b*8V7îT}#=WyCq`x`y_h'$g [lГHE=IZ|qMC㙲ᦃYU/7&+:.,[GY%|/h/ĭC, -V~DAXvn: CY64OZ@Wə¦jo1 ޔl&\OQZ`\~H1&UU^AtlhV=jV2YvnK4,1u֓Kjj?%+tFj׵gި"sQ^Io ;(S.lK)`Md}7h(kO\1X#\വ&BS365 3tB.:c1[O1nd ku^կUMac&kCξXJUf5o{OfA,<|t^֫Gl7PN1Gbg/2W6q cٟ#:p?fTڼwXD2X`EYDmzL#+|!>JLR#k5CQ|5s) R(%*ql㯛FŲ+6%ܵͣȪ1~  T=Sd[w
    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1