I don’t know why I haven’t kept up with the Michael Stagg legal “thriller” series.  I started out in December 2020 with Lethal Defense, Book 1 and got through Book 3, Blind Conviction, in August of last year (2023). That’s not very fast and I guess I forgot to look back. That’s out of 7 now.  I gave them all very good ratings, an A or an A+.  They are kind of cozy legal mysteries – 

Just Plea 
by Michael Stagg
2022 / 
Read by George Newbern 
Rating – A+ / cozy legal mystery 
#4 in Nate Shepherd series

Just this week the 4 books I was missing went on sale for a VERY reasonable price. They don’t have any at my library.  And there’s a #8 being released in November!  (Legal thrillers are amongst my favorites.)  Oh I had to splurge.

Nate Shepherd is a semi-successful criminal attorney working in some fictional city in Ohio just across the line from Michigan.. He’s in his 30s, childless and widowed – lives alone.  Working in his office is Danny another young  attorney who does research for Nate, but has now opened his own specialty in estate planning and wills.   

The plot: a man has been arrested for a hit and run accident but Edgerton Fleece, the head of a large charitable organization, is adamant that he is completely innocent.  This is happening 2 months after the event when Nate finally hears about it when the Fleece comes to his office denying everything but they go to the hearing. Very shortly after that the charges are suddenly changed to “murder with intent” and Nate has to figure out why they were changed and devise some plan to counter the evidence the prosecution has come up with plus an additional twist that a very large sum of money is involved.

I love legal thrillers (did I say that already?) because I used to learn a lot from them but I usually know what Stagg is saying. Some things are new of course – there’s always something.  And Stagg’s novels have twisty and thought-provoking plots.