Obstruction of Justice [Hardcover]

Perri O'Shaughnessy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 7, 1997

Two people have died in macabre accidents, one struck by lightning on Tahoe's  highest mountain and one mowed down by a hit-and-run driver. In the middle of  a controversial procedure to exhume one of the bodies, powerful businessman Quentin de Beers is killed. Charged with the murder, Quentin's angry grandson  Jason won't talk, even to Nina, his defense attorney. To save her client,  Nina must expose the truth about his troubled family and untangle the hidden  connections that link all three deaths. And in order to prevent a terrible  injustice, Nina makes a harrowing decision to "obstruct justice" by concealing  crucial evidence in the trial.

In the page-turning tradition of Motion to Suppress and the New York Times bestseller Invasion of Privacy, Perri O'Shaughnessy once again places attorney Nina Reilly in the backstreets of Lake Tahoe where she is up against some colorful and dangerous characters and where the action always goes beyond the courtroom.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The writing sisters Pam and Mary O'Shaughnessy (Invasion of Privacy, LJ 8/96) have partnered again for a third entry in their Nina Reilly series of legal thrillers. This time Nina's a witness to the death by lightning of a construction mogul in the Tahoe Mountains. When his father returns from a business trip, he wants Nina to have the body exhumed and autopsied for signs of murder, setting off a family furor. Suddenly, the grave is empty, the bodies of both father and son turn up in a smoldering mountain cabin, and the grandson is charged with murder. Nina is then asked to clear the grandson amid an increasingly complex series of interrelationships involving the D.A., his dead wife, a not-so-grieving widow, and, of course, the gardener. Though the evolving coincidences seem a bit contrived, this is nonetheless a compelling story with some great courtroom drama and a likable heroine. Readers will definitely look forward to more titles in the series. Recommended.?Susan Gene Clifford, Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, Cal.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Third, and weakest, in a legal procedural whodunit series featuring Lake Tahoe attorney Nina Reilly from the O'Shaughnessy sisters writing team. Taking up a few days after Invasion of Privacy (1996) ended, Reilly accompanies rugged but haunted prosecutor Collier Hallowell for what the two hope will be a romantic trek to the top of Mount Tallac, only to fall in with the dysfunctional de Beers family, whose presence on the mountain seems anything but recreational. A storm brews, and Hallowell and Reilly witness nasty Raymond de Beers, the president of a well-known but shoddy Lake Tahoe construction company, blown off the peak into their path and killed, seemingly by a bolt of lightning. After the unsatisfying inquest, which raises more questions than answers, Reilly recommends that Hallowell, who suspects foul play, hire her former lover p.i. Paul Von Wagoner to find whatever clues about the killing the Tahoe police could not. Meanwhile, Reilly is approached by domineering family patriarch Quentin de Beers, who also thinks that Raymond was somehow murdered. Reilly begins to believe that Raymond's death may be linked to the hit-and-run murder of a local woman. But the O'Shaughnessy team forces that intersection very awkwardly, compelling their disbelieving characters to lecture each other on Jungian synchronicities, the relationship between reality and art, and cosmic parallels to Greek myths. Before the mystery can be solved, others will die, and Reilly and the increasingly obsessed Hallowell will find themselves on opposite sides. The novel falls apart, like one of the badly constructed de Beers houses, in a cliff-hanging climax in which all the apparent bad guys are revealed to be good, and a method is offered that, in theory, would make lightning a murder weapon capable of striking the same place more than once. Forced, unconvincing characters and vastly overheated plotting, with some sharp, if predictable, courtroom scenes and an impressive knowledge of forensic pathology. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Delacorte Press (July 7, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385318707
• ISBN-13: 978-0385318709
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,758,922 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nina Reilly Is a Treasure!, April 24, 2002

By 

Wendy Kaplan (Houston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Obstruction of Justice (Mass Market Paperback)

Since this is the first Nina Reilly book I picked up, I have absolutely no complaints. I literally stumbled upon this book on a friend's bookcase, casually opened it up, and almost literally didn't put it down again until I had read the very last page.

My only question is: Where have I been? Why had I not heard of this wonderful series, and its equally wonderful authors, sisters Mary and Pamela ("Perri") O'Shaugnessy? If this is, as some of the reviewers say, the "weakest" in the series, will I survive the strongest?

The story takes place in scenic Lake Tahoe, where sleazy casinos vie with gorgeous mountains and stately pines for attention. The night are dark and starry, and the days...well it depends who you are. For struggling attorney Nina Reilly, who is living with her brother and sister-in-law when the book begins, the days are full of crime and conspiracy. So she decides to hike a nearby mountain with a man who interests her: deputy DA Collier Hallowell. Collier is still mourning his wife, killed a few years earlier by a hit-and-run driver who was never found. Nina has some vague idea of bringing him into the world of the living.

But before that can happen, the two encounter a family that puts the word "dysfunctional" to shame. It consists of blustering Ray DeBeers, given to abusive language, his fearful wife Sarah, his gorgeous twins Jason and Molly, and a family friend. A storm comes up, Ray is hit by lightening and killed--and the action begins, not to stop until the very last word of the very last sentence.

Was Ray's death really an accident? Is his death somehow connected with the death of Hallowell's wife? And what of the mysterious, ethereal artist Kim Voss, she of the indoor cactus garden? Add in a genuine grave-robbing, a mysterious gardeners, stolen cars, people who won't talk, people who talk too much, and a brilliant teen who may or may not be connected to the DeBeers family, and the action is fast and furious. Nina, her sidekick and sometime lover, PI Paul van Wagoner, Hallowell himself, Nina's Native American secretary and a host of lesser characters try to solve a mystery that simply compounds upon itself like a cancerous cell. In the end, nobody is untouched or unhurt by the actions that unwind at dizzying speed.

I loved this book so much, I purchased everything else in the series I could get my hands on. Now my problem is: Do I go back to the beginning, and patiently catch up? Or do I read the next book in the series (whose teaser appears at the end of the paperback version), "Breach of Promise"? Stay tuned. This is one reviewer who is totally, happily, hooked.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Stretch Of An Ending, April 5, 2001

By 

Dana - See all my reviews

This review is from: Obstruction of Justice (Mass Market Paperback)

Obstruction of Justice is the third book in this series by Perry O'shaughnessy. In this book, Nina Reilly and DA Collier Hallowell go on a date hiking. First of all the date was a little weird, considering in the last book Nina and Paul had something going on. Anyway, while on their hike they witness Ray de Beer's death from a lighting crash. The death brings back old memories for Collier of his deceased wife Anna, who was killed in a hit and run accident. Collier hires Paul to try and find clues from Anna's death. In the meantime, Ray de Beer's son, Jason is indicted for murder, and Nina is defending him. As Paul and Nina find out, Anna Hallowell's and Ray de Beer's death are more related that one might think. Obstruction of Justice fits right in with the previous two books in this series, as all are hard to put down, and are great reads. In this book, the only problem I had was that the ending was a stretch and quite unbelievable. Other than that, Obstruction of Justice, is another winner from the O'Shaughnessy's.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars What a coincidence!, May 14, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Obstruction of Justice (Mass Market Paperback)

This probably the least enjoyable of the Nine Reilly series because there are so many coincidences. Nina & Paul are working on two totally separate cases in two totally different towns, and all of a sudden, the cases are magically tied together with the same people being involved in both situations. I could not suspend my disbelief that much! Also they never clear up how one of the characters (Kim) happened to be at the scene of a certain accident while she just happens to be having an affair with one of the other characters indirectly involved with that same accident. A disappointing book.