From the Publisher
Lawyered to Death is a story both of murder and of the corruption that masquerades as business savvy in many large organizations.
Publishers Weekly
Legal and medical intrigue abound in Michael Biehl's Lawyered to Death: A Karen Hayes Mystery, the sequel to Doctored Evidence (2002), which will appear in a Berkley Prime Crime paperback simultaneously. Attorney Karen Hayes has to defend a client, the head of a Midwest hospital, first from a sexual harassment claim and then a murder charge after the client's sick wife takes a drug to which she's known to be allergic. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Hospital attorney Karen Hayes (Doctored Evidence) faces several crises when she returns to work after maternity leave. Arthur Winslow, the hospital's CEO, needs protection from the police: they suspect him of spousal abuse. Then, while hospitalized, his wife dies under strange circumstances and suspicion again falls on Arthur. Meanwhile, a hospital receptionist-at the instigation of her litigious husband-takes advantage of Arthur's vulnerability to set him up for a sexual harassment suit. Karen contacts an ambitious, up-and-coming defense lawyer for help, only to find unforgivable irregularities in his new firm. Steady prose, a predictable plot, and standard-issue characters recommend this medical/legal thriller only to larger collections. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A legal-procedural-cum-mystery featuring a sexual-harassment scam linked to murder at a Midwest hospital. First-time mother Karen Hayes returns to her job as in-house legal counsel for Shoreview Memorial Hospital with mixed emotions and without her usual intense focus on work. Her husband Jake, a laid-back jazz musician, is not proving to be the most conscientious stay-at-home father for their baby McKinley, who's named after a blues great. So, after 14 comfortable years at Shoreview, Karen contemplates joining a thriving private practice, where she'll have more respect, support-and money. Meantime, Shoreview faces a dire legal crisis: the death of patient Lorraine Winslow, apparently a case of medical negligence. The attending doctor failed to note Lorraine's allergies and/or inadvertently removed her medical bracelet. Complicating matters is the fact that Lorraine's husband Arthur is Shoreview's CEO. Complicating them further is Arthur's implication in a current sexual-harassment case (i.e., scam) engineered by hard-drinking Hiaasenesque lowlife Duane Billick and carried out by his gorgeous but not very willing wife Shari. Karen turns sleuth to unravel the complicated criminal tangle with help from Jake and her father Gene, terminally ill but invigorated by playing Watson to his daughter's Holmes. In her sophomore series entry, Biehl (Doctored Evidence, 2002) offers a fuzzy and sometimes implausible mystery but deepens the portrait of his heroine and her demanding life.
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