Perri O'Shaughnessy has 15 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 6 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.7★ across 3 ratings. The most-rated is Writ of Execution.
Case of Lies
Summary
For Nina Reilly, the mountain town of Lake Tahoe is home. It’s where she forged a successful career as a tough, resourceful attorney - and raised her teenage son, Bob, alone. Back from a stint in Monterey, where her love life took a tumble, Nina has returned to her Tahoe law office with her old friends Sandy Whitefeather and Sandy’s son, Wish. It isn’t long before she has a new client whose wife was shot and killed during a casino-district robbery two years before. The police have no suspects, and the robbery victims, three students, lied about their identities and are hiding outside California and the reach of the court. Two of the witnesses have fled to a village not far from the home of Bob’s father, Kurt Scott, in Germany.
As Nina tries to unravel the mystery of one violent Tahoe night, a harrowing journey begins - one that takes her from the dark underworld of Tahoe’s casinos to the halls of a prestigious East Coast university to Europe and an emotional reunion with Kurt.
As old feelings are rekindled, Nina’s case turns violent. Everyone has something to hide - the brilliant but unstable mathematics student who has made an astonishing discovery, the owner of a motel where the shooting took place, and the shooter, who has turned the whole case into a gigantic lie.
Filled with all the rich drama, stunning surprises, and ingenious twists we have come to expect from this incomparable storyteller, Case of Lies will grab you and never let you go as it speeds to its incredible conclusion.
©2006 Perri O'Shaughnessy (P)2005 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Motion to Suppress
Summary
Leaving her ex-husband and old job in San Francisco, attorney Nina Reilly opens a practice in Lake Tahoe hoping to start life over. As she waits for a big case, Nina decides to help Misty Patterson divorce her abusive husband. When said husband is found murdered, Nina agrees to defend Misty against murder charges.
But Misty's defense isn't easy - there are big blank spots in Misty's memory, she has a tendency toward promiscuity, and there is some very damning circumstantial evidence. Where does the truth lie? Is Misty a clever liar, a victim of some early trauma, or is she simply manipulated by others? Does someone else control the strings of Misty's life? Misty just wants to know the truth. And Nina wants justice.
©2008 Perri O'Shaughnessy (P)2008 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Writ of Execution
Summary
Now the New York Times best-selling author of Move to Strike returns with Writ of Execution, an electrifying tale that plunges attorney Nina Reilly into a shadowy world of high-stakes gambling and cold-blooded murder.In the mountain resort town of South Lake Tahoe, Nina Reilly is known for taking on the underdog cases, the kind that can make - or break - her one-woman law practice. Her latest case begins in the middle of a summer night when she is called away from a very personal visit to her investigator Paul Van Wagoner's hotel room to meet with a desperate new client at her office. The frightened young Washoe Indian woman gives her name as Jessie Potter. She has just hit one of the biggest jackpots in Nevada history, and the men in suits are waiting to hand her the million-dollar first installment when they know her real identity. With time running out, Nina helps her client devise a brilliant plan to collect the money while keeping her true identity a secret. The check's due to clear in 10 days-and Nina's got her hands full as powerful interests line up to grab the money. The Nevada Gaming Control Board is looking into allegations that the jackpot was rigged. The man sitting on the seat just before the jackpot hit says it's his, and he doesn't mind going outside the law to get it. And the wealthy man stalking Nina's client has managed to attack the jackpot winnings with the help of an unscrupulous local lawyer, Jeff Riesner, using a legal maneuver called a writ of execution. To fight it, Paul Van Wagoner flies to Hawaii and digs up a dark moment in Jessie's past. The odds of Jessie ever collecting are starting to look hopeless.For Nina, what began as a fight for an underdog in federal court soon escalates into something very different and far more dangerous. Jessie has a secret, and she needs that money for a very good reason. By the time Nina discovers that Jessie is withholding vital information, it might be too late ...
©2004 Perri O'Shaughnessy (P)2004 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Keeper of the Keys
Summary
For ambitious, troubled architect Ray Jackson, the nightmare begins one sultry California night when his wife disappears. No phone call, no ransom note, no body, reveals whether Leigh is dead or alive.
Then, suddenly, a woman shows up on Ray's doorstep demanding answers: Kathleen, an old friend of Leigh's. Ray wants answers, too, but his questions seem strange and shady to Kat. Suspected by his wife's friend and by the police, Ray launches a desperate and alarming search of his own. Using a collection of keys he has held on to since he was a boy - keys to homes he and his mother once lived in - Ray quietly yet boldly enters each house, one by one, hoping to unlock the secrets of his own past. As past and present collide, as a chilling mystery begins to unravel, Ray is suddenly confronted with the most agonizing decision of his life - to face his own violence-laden past, acting to prevent another horrendous act of violence, or not. His choice will leave nothing and no one the same.
©2006 Perri O'Shaughnessy (P)2006 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Obstruction of Justice
Summary
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 murder, Quentin's angry grandson won't talk, even to Nina Reilly, 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. As the trial draws to an end, both the D. A. and Nina will make a harrowing decision to obstruct justice in order to prevent a terrible injustice.
©1998 Perri O'Shaughnessy (P)2007 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Breach of Promise
Summary
At glitzy Lake Tahoe, couples break up every day, but none quite so glamorous or successful as Lindy and Mike Markov. The scenario starts off in the standard way: Mike's met a younger woman and wants out. The problem? Mike and Lindy built a $200-million business together and Mike claims he doesn't owe Lindy a dime since they never married.
Ready to fight, Lindy hires Nina Reilly to represent her in her palimony suit, and lacking the resources to handle a case with stakes so high, Nina turns to an expert litigator in palimony law who insists on hiring a jury consultant. The case is hardly open-and-shut, and complicating things further, a carefully chosen juror winds up dead. With a host of possible suspects and the biggest case of her career hanging in the balance, the pressure's on Nina to find the killer, win the case, and save the day.
©1999 Perri O'Shaughnessy (P)2007 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Dreams of the Dead
Summary
Perri O’Shaughnessy “will keep you turning pages into the night,” applauds USA Today, in praise of the celebrated novels of suspense starring the audacious yet all-too-human defense attorney Nina Reilly. Now, in a spellbinding new thriller, O’Shaughnessy plunges Nina back into the center of a murderous family game, and reawakens a very real nightmare she had every reason to believe was dead...and buried. A mix of slick and seamy, South Lake Tahoe, California, is the perfect setting for adventurers, criminals—and lawyers. In addition to coping with her demanding, sometimes creepy, clients, Nina Reilly is dealing with prickly personal issues involving her sixteen-year-old son Bob, his estranged father, and her investigator, confidante, and sometimes lover Paul van Wagoner. Then, in walks disaster. The millionaire owner of a Tahoe ski resort, Philip Strong is the father of Jim Strong, a sociopath who devastated many innocent lives, including Nina’s. Two years earlier, she had to defend Jim against charges of murder. He shattered her life, then vanished. Paul van Wagoner made sure of it. Now in negotiations to sell his ski resort, Philip has received a letter purportedly from his fugitive son in extradition-free Brazil, demanding his share of the profits. Philip is convinced it’s authentic. Nina’s certain it’s a con, but to prove that means exposing the secrets of someone very close to her. Then two local women are brutally murdered. Nina begins to question their links to her new client, and the truth about Jim Strong’s sudden disappearance. As Nina’s worst fears flood back, with time running out, she’s about to discover that the dreams of the dead can still destroy the living. With its breakneck pace, pulsing human drama, and serpentine twists, Dreams of the Dead establishes once again why Perri O’Shaughnessy has been hailed as “a master of the legal thriller” (Vincent Bugliosi).
©2011 Perri O'Shaughnessy (P)2011 Simon & Schuster
Show No Fear
Summary
In this Nina Reilly thriller, Perri O'Shaughnessy takes listeners back to Nina's first murder investigation, to the case that ignites her passionate commitment to fighting for justice. Working as a paralegal and attending law school at night, Nina has her hands full. She's fighting for custody of her young son, Bob, and overseeing a medical malpractice lawsuit on behalf of her mother, Virigina Reilly, whose health is rapidly declining after she suffered complications from an acupuncture procedure. But Nina's personal stresses are ramped up when a local tragedy plunges Nina into a hunt for a killer - a killer only she believes exists. When a woman falls to her death off a bridge near Big Sur, Nina suspects there is more to the accident than the authorities are saying. Embarking on her solitary quest for the truth and stirring up trouble along the way, Nina catches the killer's attention - and the only official help Nina gets is from homicide cop Paul van Wagoner. Now, moving dangerously close to the shattering truth, Nina finds the missing link in the shadowy case only when she recognizes a crucial, overlooked fact: sometimes people bury their secret desires, even from those who love them the most. Show No Fear illumines what makes the brilliant Nina Reilly tick and is a fascinating prequel that Perri O'Shaughnessy fans will love!
©2008 Perri O'Shaughnessy (P)2011 Simon & Schuster
Acts of Malice
Summary
Set amid the darker side of Lake Tahoe's glamorous ski resorts, Acts of Malice has Nina taking on the case of Jim Strong, a member of South Lake Tahoe's most prominent families and the owners of the posh Paradise Ski Resort. With his brother Alex recently killed in a headline-making accident that occurred while they were skiing together, Jim fears he may be indicted in the death. When the coroner announces that Alex died from injuries unrelated to the accident, Jim is charged with murder.As Nina prepares to defend her client, she has no idea that this case will lead her into a terrifying confrontation with a psychopath or threaten all that she holds most dear. She never expects to witness the perplexing and tangled set of loyalties and alliances among the Strong family.Further complicating matters is Assistant District Attorney Collier Hallowell, back from sabbatical. Determined to put Jim Strong behind bars, he's equally resolved to pick up romantically where he and Nina left off - and to take their relationship in a completely new direction.
©2007 Perri O'Shaughnessy (P)2007 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Move to Strike
Summary
Nina's not sleeping much these days. She's recovering from a great loss, haunted by a killer who may still be tracking her, and working on a tough new case. Her client is a 16-year-old girl charged with first-degree murder. Nikki Zack is a rebel, a thief, and the best friend of Nina's son, Bob. Did she steal something from her uncle, a prominent plastic surgeon, and then kill him with an ancient samurai sword?
To help find out, Nina calls in private investigator Paul Van Wagoner, her ex-lover and constant ally, whose bravado doesn't betray his own sleepless nights. As they work through the twisting lies surrounding Nikki, it becomes brutally clear to Nina that she must pull an ace out of her sleeve in the courtroom to save her client, and solve the mystery surrounding Paul to save herself.
©2001 Perri O'Shaughnessy (P)2005 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Unfit to Practice
Summary
As an attorney championing desperate people, Nina Reilly has skirted the edges of legal ethics in pursuit of a just result but she has never before broken the rule of absolute protection of her clients' secrets. One September night at Lake Tahoe when her unlocked truck is stolen, her life changes forever. Inside are her most sensitive cases, complete with the sometimes brutally candid notes she took while interviewing her clients.It's the event that every attorney most fears - one careless moment that undoes a lifetime of building trust and respect. The worst has happened - the secrets are being revealed one by one, in ways that will cause the greatest harm.Nina's own clients complain to the State Bar of California, and suddenly Nina is fighting for her license and her livelihood in a Kafkaesque legal proceeding that may ultimately lead to her disbarment.In desperation, Nina hires a top San Francisco lawyer, Jack McIntyre, to represent her. She ought to know he's tough as well as cynical and funny - he's her ex-husband. And as personal tensions erupt between Jack and Nina's on-the-edge investigator Paul van Wagoner...as reputations are ruined and people begin to die...a malign pattern of rage and revenge comes into focus. Someone is bent on destroying the lives of her clients and, in the process, destroying Nina Reilly.
©2004 Perri O'Shaughnessy (P)2004 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Unlucky in Law
Summary
Nina has just received a last-minute call from her old boss and mentor in Monterey County, California, where she is enjoying the breathtaking scenery and spending time with her boyfriend, P.I. Paul van Wagoner. Klaus Pohlmann is in desperate straits and begs Nina to take over a seemingly unwinnable case: A luckless two-time felon named Stefan Wyatt has robbed a grave and made off with the long-buried bones of a Russian émigré. When he is caught and arrested, further devastating evidence found in the grave suggests that Stefan is guilty of a far more deadly crime.A young woman, a classmate of Stefan's, has been killed, and he is accused of her murder. Now, as a result of California's Third Strike law, Wyatt is looking at 25 years to life whether he's convicted of grand theft or murder. Either way, he's in big trouble. With her client's blood DNA found in the dead woman's apartment, Nina faces an uphill battle. Suspecting that her hapless client has been set up, Nina brings in a brilliant forensic pathologist who comes up with a startling theory about the case that could rewrite a crucial page of European history. As the evidence mounts against Nina's client, Paul launches his own investigation into the shadowy past of the two-decades-old skeleton. But long-held secrets nearly get him killed and reveal a more insidious evil at work - and an extraordinary story dating back to tsarist Russia and the Romanov court. As Wyatt edges closer to the unluckiest verdict of his young life, Nina makes an astounding discovery that just might save her client - or expose a killer who could bury them all.
©2004 Perri O'Shaughnessy (P)2004 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Show No Fear
Summary
Five years before the events related in O'Shaughnessy's first Nina Reilly novel Motion to Supress, Nina is living in Carmel, California, with Bob, her toddler-age son, and working as a paralegal at a law firm while attending law school at night. Additional stress comes from Nina's former boyfriend, Richard Filsen, who thinks she is a bad mother and sues her for custody of her son. Nina's life whirls out of control when her mother, Margaret Reilly, decides to sue a local acupuncturist, Dr. Wu, for medical malpractice. Margaret's health is declining rapidly due to the injury she suffered from Dr. Wu and when she dies, she wants to leave some money to Nina and Nina's brother, Matt, a recovering drug addict. Nina knows the emotional cost of a lawsuit but her mother is determined, so Nina recommends that she consult Remy Sorensen, a brilliant lawyer who is everything Nina aspires to be. Then a woman falls to her death from Bixby Creek Bridge at Big Sur. Is her death an accident or a suicide? The authorities seem satisfied that there's no evidence of foul play, but Nina is convinced it is an act of murder and embarks on her own quest for the truth. Stirring up trouble, Nina catches the killer's attention, witnesses die, and the only "official" help Nina gets is from homicide cop Paul Van Wagoner. Nina's investigations lead nowhere until she recognizes a crucial, overlooked fact: sometimes people keep their true feelings and desires secret, even from the people who love them. Providing fascinating new insight into the character of Nina Reilly, this new novel keeps listeners on the edge of their seats as it explores the hidden mysteries of the heart and positions Perri O'Shaughnessy as one of the most original and powerful thriller authors writing today.
©2008 Pamela O'Shaughnessy and Mary O'Shaughnessy (P)2008 Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Presumption of Death
Summary
Nina Reilly needs a fresh start. In three years, she's taken on some of Lake Tahoe's most controversial cases and has turned her struggling one-woman law firm into a thriving practice. Now she's ready to sort out her complex relationship with her boyfriend, Monterey P.I. Paul Van Wagoner. So she's heading to the Carmel Valley, the place where she began her career and where her estranged father lives. It's also a place of dramatic contradictions and hidden tensions, of new wealth and old families. And, within days of her arrival, Nina is already feeling the heat, as a case of arson exposes some of the darkest secrets of her hometown. Two suspicious fires have already raged through the valley this summer, igniting suspicions of arson. When a third blaze ends in a fatality, police zero in on a suspect: Wish, the son of Sandy Whitefeather, Nina's ex-assistant. The dead man is identified as Wish's childhood friend, a troubled local auto mechanic who hated the changes wealthy newcomers had brought to the valley. Nina and Paul are certain that there is more to this strange case than meets the eye. As they work together to clear Wish, new, more frightening questions are raised, and another fire is set. And out of the flames a terrifying picture emerges: a community steeped in secrets and rage, a tangled history between two men, and a killer whose motives are dark and wrenching.
©2004 Perri O'Shaughnessy (P)2004 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Invasion of Privacy
Summary
Twelve years ago, a young girl disappeared. Now a filmmaker has made a movie about it. The girl's parents call it invasion of privacy. A woman lawyer calls it murder. The bloodstains on the courtroom floor belong to attorney Nina Reilly. Months earlier she'd been shot during a heated murder trial. She should have died that day. Instead, Nina has returned to the same Lake Tahoe court. Her only concession to her lingering fear is to give up criminal law. She figures an invasion of privacy lawsuit is a nice, safe civil action that will help her support her young son and pay the bills for her one-woman law office. She figures wrong. Nina's client is Terry London, a filmmaker whose documentary about a missing girl is raising disturbing questions. The girl's distraught parents believe the film invades their privacy. But Terry's brutal murder changes everything. Breaking her promise to herself, Nina decides to defend Terry's accused murderer, a man she'd known years before and hoped never to see again. Suddenly the secrets of Nina's past are beginning to surface in a murder case that gets more dangerous every day. The evidence against her client is shocking and ironclad - a video of Terry's dying words. The only chance Nina has to save the man may be illegal. And if it fails, Nina may lose the case, her practice.... and even her life.
©2010 Brilliance Audio, Inc.; 1996 Perri O'Shaughnessy