AustLit

'Set amongst the hallowed grounds of Deane University, the most expensive college in the country, America's privileged youth must allow nothing to jeopardise their chances to succeed.

'Nineteen-year-old Jessica Nagoshi, in her third year of economics at Deane, is the beautiful and intelligent heiress to her father's multi-million dollar empire and is being groomed, along with her brother Peter, to take control of Nagoshi Inc. That is, until she is brutally murdered in the greenhouse of her father's extensive Wellesley estate.

'David Cavanaugh, Boston's most sought-after defence attorney, is unwittingly forced into this high-society murder case when he must defend his young protégé James Matheson, final year law student at Deane. For in James he sees traces of his younger self - Matheson is dedicated, ambitious and unsullied by the nuances of a system more often driven by politics than justice.

'From the outset David realises the odds are against him. Unspoken alliances, corporate secrets, love, lust and a disastrous misplace of trust lead David down a road where nothing is as it seems.' (Publisher's blurb)