The Judgement

As winter descends upon Detroit, ace lawyer Charley Sloan is drawn into a case that involves the bizarre murders of small children. Someone is killing them, bathing their bodies and washing their clothes. They are wrapping them in plastic, and placing them in the new-fallen snow. Laid out like little angels, peacefully asleep. The serial murders seem unsolvable, for the killer is elusive and very clever. Detroit’s powerful police chief, Mark Conroy, asks Charley to defend him against charges that he stole millions from the department’s secret cash fund, a fund meant to pay off informants. It’s a case that grabs headlines and is fraught with scandal, politics, and graft. Charley has to find the real embezzler before an innocent man is put away and his own career is ruined. Once again, Charley finds himself torn between two big cases that hurtle him into a web of danger and deceit. The Judgment is a compulsively readable novel by an acknowledged master. Praise for William J. Coughlin “The Judgment is vintage Coughlin — sharp, tight, and full of suspense and wisdom. Enjoy it.” — SCOTT TUROW “William Coughlin, with the engraver’s finest awl, has created another legal thriller filled with the aching human frailties that are hidden in all of us. If you don’t have enough time to finish The Judgment, don’t start it.” — PAUL LINDSAY, AUTHOR OF FREEDOM TO KILL “Coughlin wrote taut and suspenseful novels of the legal system before Scott Turow ever lifted a pen.” — WASHINGTON TIMES “Coughlin knows his stuff!” — PLAYBOY “His spellbinding grasp of the courtroom held me on the edge of my seat until the last page.” — WILLIAM J. CAUNITZ “Coughlin is a consummate storyteller.” — LIBRARY JOURNAL “First-rate entertainment.” — BOOKLIST ON HEART OF JUSTICE “Coughlin keeps you burning the midnight oil to the very end.” — KIRKUS REVIEWS ON IN THE PRESENCE OF ENEMIES “It’s a scorcher with a shock conclusion that will leave the reader breathless.” — Liz SMITH ON SHADOW OF A DOUBT William J Coughlin, a former defense attorney and judge in Detroit for twenty years, was the author of sixteen novels. He lived in Grosse Point Woods, Michigan, with his wife, Ruth, an author and book critic. Coughlin’s successes include his legal thriller Shadow of a Doubt, which hit bestseller lists across the country. He won even more fans with his subsequent bestsellers, In the Presence of Enemies and Heart of Justice.