Sheldon Siegel has 12 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 3 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.6★ across 15 ratings. The most-rated is Special Circumstances.
Special Circumstances
Summary
Debut author Sheldon Siegel bursts into the legal thriller arena with a riveting courtroom drama, exposing the world of big-time law firms and lawyers in a fresh, sharp-witted, wonderfully sardonic novel. Meet Mike Daley. Ex-priest. Ex-public defender. And as of yesterday, ex-partner in one of San Francisco's most prominent law firms. Today he's out on his own, setting up practice on the wrong side of town. Then his best friend and former colleague is charged with a brutal double murder, and Daley is instantly catapulted into a high-profile investigation involving the prestigious law firm that just booted him. As he prepares his case, Daley uncovers the firm's dirtiest secrets. It doesn't take long for him to discover that in this trial, ambition, friendship, greed, and long-standing grudges will play just as important a role as truth and justice. Brilliantly paced, crackling with energy and suspense, Special Circumstances reminds us why we love to hate lawyers - but can't get enough of courtroom drama when it's done this well.
©2000 Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc. (P)2017 Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc.
Serve and Protect
Summary
It starts with a routine traffic stop. Moments later, a young man is killed by a rookie cop. Self-defense or murder? As San Francisco descends into chaos, it's up to Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez to prove the cop's innocence. In the ninth installment of New York Times best-selling author Sheldon Siegel's iconic San Francisco series, ex-spouses Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez have come a long way from their days as small-time defense attorneys. No longer working in a converted martial arts studio on the earthy side of Mission Street. Rosie is now San Francisco's Public Defender, and Mike is the head of the Felony Division. Their daughter is in college. Their son is in middle school. For the first time in years, there is a semblance of order in their lives. It doesn't last long. Johnny Bacigalupi is a rookie police officer and fourth-generation cop. His father is an assistant chief. He's also Mike's godson. On a rainy night, Johnny and his partner pull over a Honda with a broken tail light. When Juwon Jones is asked to exit his car, he bangs the door into Johnny and flees. Johnny corners Jones in a parking lot. Shots ring out and Jones is dead. A rookie mistake? Self-defense? A gun is found under the body - did it belong to Jones? Was it planted? No weapon is visible in body cam footage. Johnny and the other cops insist that Johnny acted in self-defense. The D.A. charges Johnny with first-degree murder. Mike takes a leave from the P.D.'s Office to represent his godson. Meanwhile, TV, cable news, Twitter, and social media explode. Police supporters clash with Black Lives Matter. Mike, Rosie, and Mike's private-investigator brother, Pete, face their biggest challenge in a high-stakes case where San Francisco's streets turn violent. Serve and Protect is the ninth book in the legal thriller series featuring Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez.
©2018 Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc. (P)2018 Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc.
Hot Shot
Summary
“Everything you’ve heard about sex, drugs, and misogyny in Silicon Valley is true - only it’s worse.” (Mike Daley) It starts with a phone call on Christmas Eve. Jeff King, the founder of Silicon Valley’s hottest tech start-up, was found dead in his mansion above Mission Dolores on San Francisco’s “Billionaires Row”. Lexy Low, a young woman he had met on a “sugar daddy” site, allegedly injected King with a lethal “hot shot” of heroin. Or did she? Was it an accident? Or murder? In the 10th installment of New York Times best-selling author Sheldon Siegel’s iconic San Francisco series, it’s up to ex-spouses and public defenders Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez to find the truth. King’s company, Y5K Technologies, is on the cusp of a widely anticipated IPO. In the media, King was portrayed as a visionary and a dedicated husband and father. In reality, Y5K had paid millions to settle multiple sexual harassment claims. He was also a regular heroin user and frequent visitor to a popular strip club in San Francisco’s trendy South of Market neighborhood. Lexy is a former wunderkind programmer for one of Silicon Valley’s most successful tech companies. She loses her job when she rebuffs the advances of her supervisor. Her life spirals downward after she becomes addicted to antidepressants, pain killers, and, ultimately, heroin. Unemployed and homeless, she supports her habit by hooking up with King using the nom de plume “Sexy Lexy”. On a rainy night, King invites his senior management team, venture capitalists, and several young women to a party at his house. He also invites Lexy for an after-party. After the other guests leave, King and Lexy rendezvous in King’s bedroom, where Lexy injects King with high-powered heroin. Lexy claims that King provided the heroin. King’s people claim that Lexy brought it. The members of management - who detested King - used the bathroom where Lexy allegedly found the heroin. Did King leave it there? Did somebody from management? Or did Lexy bring it herself? As Lexy’s case hurtles toward trial, Mike and Rosie race from the mansions of Billionaires Row to the venture capital firms on Sand Hill Road to the high-tech office parks in Palo Alto to find the elusive truth in Silicon Valley’s boys’ club where everybody has something to hide. An intricate plot, likable characters, powerful suspense, and a touch of humor are Sheldon Siegel’s hallmarks. Listeners will discover once again why Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez have been called two of the most compelling characters in contemporary crime fiction. Hot Shot is the tenth book in the legal thriller series featuring Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez.
©2019 Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc. (P)2019 Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc.
Felony Murder Rule
Summary
I was just sitting in the car. In the eighth installment of New York Times best-selling author Sheldon Siegel's iconic San Francisco series, Mike Daley and ex-wife Rosie Fernandez face new challenges and stare down old demons as they return to work at the San Francisco Public Defender's Office where they had started their careers and their relationship 20 years earlier. Mike and Rosie are now the co-heads of the Felony Division, where they spend more time running the office and supervising younger attorneys than trying cases. That changes quickly when Mike is visited by Melinda Nguyen, whose son, Thomas, a high school senior, is about to go on trial for murder. Thomas has been arrested under California's archaic felony murder rule, which says you can be can be convicted of first degree murder if you're present when someone is killed during the course of a felony, even if you don't pull the trigger. The charge against Thomas shows the limits of this legal doctrine. He was sitting outside in the car when a friend entered a liquor store in San Francisco's teeming Tenderloin District and allegedly flashed a gun. The shopkeeper pulled out an AR-15 and calmly filled the alleged robber's chest with bullets. Thomas is charged with murder even though he never entered the store. Thomas fires his original lawyer on the eve of trial after she recommends a plea bargain. With nowhere else to turn, his mother petitions for help from the Public Defender's Office, and Mike agrees to handle the trial scheduled to start four days later. As the evidence mounts against Thomas, it tests Mike and Rosie's legal skills and relationship. Their stress is compounded by the fact that Thomas and his mother may have a connection to Mike's older brother, Tommy, who died in Vietnam.
©2017 Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc. (P)2017 Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc.
The Confession
Summary
Confessions abound - some of them quite unexpected - in Sheldon Siegel's legal thriller, the fifth in the outstanding Mike Daley/Rosie Fernandez series set in San Francisco. Mike Daley doesn't go to confession much since he left the priesthood twenty years ago and became a lawyer, but that doesn't stop his old friend, Father Ramon Aguirre, from trying to get him there. "It wouldn't kill you to go to church once in a while," he tells Mike. But it does kill someone. For several months, a ruinous sexual harassment suit has been building against the San Francisco Catholic Archdiocese, and when the plaintiff's lawyer is found dead, an apparent suicide, an almost audible sigh of relief is heard in certain quarters. But that is before the police find evidence of murder. Even worse - the evidence points to Father Aguirre. Mike and his ex-wife law partner, Rosie, jump in to take the priest's case, but what started out as difficult soon appears impossible as forensics, witnesses, and secrets from Father Aguirre's past all incriminate their client. Soon, their wits are the only things keeping the priest from a life sentence or worse, and wits simply may not be enough-unless they can conjure up a miracle of their own. Of Siegel's most recent book, Publishers Weekly said, "The verdict is clear; another win for Siegel." And so it is again with The Confession.
©2004 Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc. (P)2013 Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc.
Incriminating Evidence
Summary
With his first novel, Special Circumstances, Sheldon Siegel delivered legal fiction so exciting, it drew comparisons with the very top tier of courtroom thrillers. Now he has a new challenge for defense attorney Mike Daley - ex-priest, ex-husband, ex-public defender - and it's a high-profile zinger: a case he doesn't think he can win for a client he can't stand. It starts with a phone call Mike Daley never expected, from District Attorney Prentice Marshall Gates III, San Francisco's chief law enforcement officer and front-runner candidate for California attorney general. Friends they're not, but Gates needs Daley now - badly. He's just been arrested. A couple of hours earlier he woke up in his hotel room and found the dead body of a young male prostitute in the bed. Prosecutors are already talking the death penalty, and there's nothing in the mounting evidence to convince Daley and his partner - and ex-wife - Rosie of Gates' innocence. But even if he's lying, it's their job to defend him. Sure enough, the deeper Mike and Rosie dig, the seamier their findings. From a shady Internet entrepreneur who trades flesh for cash to a prominent businessman who uses muscle to keep his enterprise prospering, Mike and Rosie chase down leads that take them from the depths of the Mission District, where drugs and bodies are always for sale, to the gated mansions of Pacific Heights, frantically trying to piece together the shocking truth of what actually happened, even as the trial itself is under way.
©2001 Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc. (P)2017 Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc.
The Terrorist Next Door
Summary
Meet Detective David Gold. He's a third generation native of hardscrabble South Chicago. He's also one of Chicago's most decorated homicide detectives. Meet Gold's new partner, Detective AC Battle. He's a native of Mississippi whose family moved to Chicago to escape the Jim Crow South. He grew up in the Robert Taylor Homes, the penal colony of high rises across the Dan Ryan Expressway from Mayor Daley's house and Comiskey Park. Here's their first challenge. More than a decade after 9/11, someone is setting off fire bombs in Chicago using untraceable cell phones. An unknown group takes credit for the bombings and demands the release of Hassan Al-Shahid, a University of Chicago graduate student whose plan to set off a bomb at the Art Institute was thwarted at the last minute by Gold and his long-time partner, Paul Liszewski. Their heroic efforts had cost Liszewski his life and put Gold in the hospital. Shocked and grieving, Gold rallies to receive a Medal of Valor on the steps of that same Art Institute. During the ceremony, a car bomb explodes across the street and moment later Gold receives a text: It isn't over. The FBI and Homeland Security believe the new bomber is a lone wolf. That makes him even more dangerous. More car bombs are detonated at the Wrigley Field El station, Millennium Park, the Museum of Science and Industry, O'Hare Airport, the Hyde Park train station, and the upscale Rush Street area near North Michigan Avenue. The bomber has shut down a major US city. Just to free Al-Shahid? Gold and Battle hunt him across Chicago's colorful neighborhoods: from the high rises of the Magnificent Mile to century-old churches where mass is still celebrated in Polish to the ivy-covered buildings at the University of Chicago to crumbling old synagogues and gritty seafood shacks next to the ghostly expanses of vacant land where the steel mills once stood.
©2013 Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc. (P)2017 Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc.
Judgment Day
Summary
New York Times best-selling author Sheldon Siegel returns with a harrowing new case for the San Francisco law firm of Daley and Fernandez. As husband and wife, Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez couldn't make it work. But as partners in one of San Francisco's most tenacious law firms, Daley and Fernandez make one hell of a team. Judgment Day finds the ex-spouses tackling their most difficult case yet. Called in at the last minute to try to stop the execution of Nathan Fineman, a former mob lawyer convicted of murdering three people in the back room of Chinatown's notorious Golden Dragon Restaurant, Mike and Rosie must race the clock in a desperate attempt to prove their client's innocence. With only 10 days to go and a wealth of forensic evidence pointing overwhelmingly to Fineman's guilt, their task seems impossible. Complicating matters, Mike must battle his own personal demons when the reputation of his dead father - a San Francisco cop who was one of the first officers at the scene the night of the murders - is called into question. And as the plot hurtles toward its stunning denouement, judgment day is fast approaching not only for Nate Fineman, but for Mike's father and the law firm of Daley and Fernandez as well.
©2008 Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc. (P)2017 Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc.
The Dreamer
Summary
The chef's knife was in the wrong place...wedged deep in the gut of celebrity chef Carlos Cruz. With her bloody discovery, Mercy could lose it all. And not just for her. Her entire family is at risk, too. Carlos Cruz, San Francisco’s hottest young chef, rose from modest beginnings to getting a James Beard Award for his upscale Mission District eatery El Conquistador. In addition to creating cutting-edge cuisine, the mercurial Cruz has been accused of sexual harassment multiple times. Smart, ambitious, and tenacious, Mercedes “Mercy” Tejada was granted "dreamer" status while studying to become a nurse. The waitress job wasn’t ideal, but the tips paid the bills. When she finds her boss dying in the alley behind his trendy bistro, she knows she’s in a lot of trouble. Mercy’s fingerprints and blood-splattered sweatshirt make her a prime suspect. It doesn’t help that she and Cruz were seen fighting, and Mercy had threatened him. In the 11th installment of The New York Times best-selling author Sheldon Siegel’s iconic San Francisco series, ex-spouses and public defenders Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez are thrust into the middle of this politically charged case and tasked with finding the truth. The case is personal for them, too. Mercy’s mom Perlita is the longtime housekeeper for Rosie’s mother Sylvia. It is Sylvia who asks Rosie and Mike to handle Mercy’s case. There are political ramifications, as well. Rosie is running for reelection as public defender. Her decision to handle a dreamer’s defense herself will not play well to a portion of the electorate. As Mercy’s case hurtles toward trial, Rosie, Mike, and Pete, Mike’s brother and private investigator, race between the tenements, trendy restaurants, and century-old churches of the Mission District in a desperate search for an elusive truth where everybody - including Mike and Rosie and their families - has something to hide. An intricate plot, likeable characters, powerful suspense, and a touch of humor are Sheldon Siegel’s hallmarks. In The Dreamer, listeners will discover, once again, why Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez have been called two of the most compelling characters in contemporary crime fiction.
©2020 Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc. (P)2020 Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc.
Perfect Alibi
Summary
For Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez, former spouses and current law partners, the stakes have never been higher. In the seventh installment of this best-selling, critically acclaimed series, the duo learns that their 16-year-old daughter's boyfriend has been arrested on suspicion of murdering his father, a Superior Court judge. Bobby Fairchild, however, claims to have found his father's body upon returning home from a date with Grace. The police, who found Bobby at the scene of the crime holding the murder weapon, contend that his parents' acrimonious divorce sent the boy over the edge. With their daughter as Bobby's only alibi, Mike and Rosie take the case and uncover a sex scandal that takes them down San Francisco's darkest alleys and into the homes of the city's most prominent citizens.
©2010 Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc. (P)2017 Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc.
Final Out
Summary
A ballpark. A bay. A body. Robbie Blum was San Francisco’s most prominent sports agent. His clients included players on the Giants, Warriors, and Niners. It all came crashing down when his body was found floating in San Francisco Bay after a Giants game, his skull crushed, and a Louisville Slugger floating next to his body. Though Blum was a wildly successful agent, his personal life was a disaster. Two failed marriages. Allegations of spousal abuse. Alcohol. Drugs. Gambling. Even his biggest client, Giants’ slugger David Archer, had reservations about Blum’s erratic behavior. Jaylen Jenkins is a native of Oakland (“before it was woke”, as he likes to say). The graduate of McClymonds High School ekes out a living and pays for his mother’s drug rehab by working at fast-food restaurants, driving for Uber, and selling Giants T-shirts outside the ballpark. Jaylen also ran errands for Blum - and it was more than getting his laundry. Jenkins picked up illegal drugs for Blum from a supplier at a strip club. Blum also provided Jaylen with Giants swag to sell behind the ballpark. On the night that he died, Blum met with Jaylen at his stand and gave money to Jaylen to deliver to Blum’s drug supplier. Blum also had an autographed bat that he was going to give to his son. According to the police, Jaylen attacked Blum and killed him. Jaylen appears on a security video with a bat in hand. In the twelfth installment of The New York Times best-selling author Sheldon Siegel’s iconic San Francisco series, ex-spouses and public defenders Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez defend Jaylen in a high-profile case where they race from the glamorous world of professional sports to the low-rent world of strip clubs and homeless encampments in a desperate search for an elusive truth where everybody has something to hide. An intricate plot, engaging characters, powerful suspense, and a touch of humor are Sheldon Siegel’s hallmarks. In Final Out, listeners will discover once again why Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez are two of the most compelling characters in contemporary crime fiction.
©2021 Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc (P)2020 Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc
Criminal Intent
Summary
You can pick your friends, they say, but you can't pick your family. And lately, Mike Daley's family has been keeping him very busy. An ex-priest, ex-public defender, and ex-corporate lawyer, Daley and his former wife, Rosie Fernandez, now run their own San Francisco criminal defense firm. Most of their cases are fairly small-time, which is why it would be surprising that the person accused of murdering movie director Richard (Big Dick) MacArthur is calling them - except that the accused is Rosie's own niece, Angelina. That case is bad enough, but the family problems don't end there: Rosie's brother, Tony, may be on the wrong end of a strong-arm graft proposal; the son of one of the firm's lawyers has just been busted on a drug charge; Mike is having a clandestine affair with a woman judge... and Rosie herself has a dark secret that may make all of it seem irrelevant. An intricate plot, immensely likeable characters, powerful suspense, and more than a touch of humor-these have already become Siegel's hallmarks. Criminal Intent will keep you turning pages until its final, surprising end.
©2002 Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc. (P)2012 Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc.