My Pick of the Week!

I have to compare Richard North Patterson to John Grisham, as he writes really interesting courtroom dramas with plenty of twists. John Grisham writes primarily about the southern US, whereas Richard North Patterson doesn't confine himself to the Deep South. In Degree of Guilt, the action takes place in San Francisco, where a prominent American writer is found dead in a cheap hotel room in the middle of an otherwise typical weekday. The only other person in the room is Mary Carelli, a Diane Sawyer-type television journalist who insists that she shot the famous writer in self-defense. But did she? The more the police investigate, the more it seems that something closer to pre-meditated murder may have happened in that room. There’s lots of courtroom action, dramatic witness testimony, and surprising twists everywhere. Degree of Guilt is not one of Richard North Patterson’s most recent novels, but it’s one of his best!