I received this book through "NetGalley" and I am voluntarily leaving an honest review.

The story begins with Dutch getting out of bed and trying to get ready for court. His wife has told him something and there is disagreement on it. Dutch goes to court for a preliminary hearing and Ginnie his wife goes to the WMUR studio. They both agreed later to discuss their disagreement. After Dutch gets home from court, Ginnie hasn't got home. After awhile, Dutch tries reacging her at the TV station, but she had already left. Dutch is worried and asks Ginnie's boss to see if her car was still there. He is told that it's there so Dutch drives to the ststion to find out where Ginnie is. Dutch discovers her cell phone by the car and is worried. He contacts the police and when they arrive, he provides them with the information.

The next day, Ginnie is still missing, and when he is in court, he asks for a coninuance. The prosecution side is willing, but because Dutch'e client wants a speedy trial, Dutch is not able to get it. Dutch asks to be taken off, but the Judge doesn't grant his request. Dutch has to continue serving his client. Dutch has avised his, a judge charged with murder, that he would be working on finding his wife at the sme time. Dutch eventually called his investigator to help him look. As time went by, Dutch received some mail that held items of Ginnie. The investigation started to center on people that Ginnie because of her stoories wound up being threatened. Several leads in this vein were pursued, but they all seem to come up empty. It was later thought that it wasn't Ginnie they were after, but Dutch. Dutch went through his earlier cases along with the client that he was representing. Several names came up.

One of the individuals in the police department thoght Dutch was responsible. To convince them, he took a polygraph test. Eventually, Dutch received a ransome request. Dutch began trying to get the money together with help by several parties. It turned out that the individual asking for the ransome wasn't involved.

To discover who took Ginnie, what was the item they discussed that they disagreed on, how did the trial go for Dutch's client and who ll were concider and eliminated as suspects, then you need to read this book.

A great story of consequences.
A Judge on trial for murdering his wife.
A TV news anchor kidnapped.
Dutch Francis, the Defence Lawyer nor the Judge, and the Husband of the news anchor
Both the Judge and the News anchor have their haters, a consequence of their jobs, but s the judge guilty or did somebody kill his wife to get at him.
Is the news anchor kidnapped by one of her haters or somebody trying to put her husband of his game and affect the trial agains the judge.
A great read.

“Roses are red, violets are blue. I’d rather be dead than live without you.”

✮✮✮✮

Dutch Francis, lawyer, is hired to defend a judge who has been accused of murdering his wife Mo. The day that the preliminary hearing starts, Dutch’s wife is late home from her job presenting the six o’clock news. After ringing the station and hearing that her car is still there, he rushes down to look for her. Upon finding her phone on the floor next to her car, he rings the police and reports her missing, assuming she must have been kidnapped. Between trying to find his wife and running a murder trial, Dutch starts to lose all hope. Will one situation effect the other?

This was a great book! The characters felt completely real, and I had complete sympathy for Dutch. I don’t think I could ever continue my job in that situation, he really showed his strength, his love for his wife, as well as his loyalty to his clients. The kidnapping and the investigation that followed was really well thought out, and the Manilla envelopes kept it page-turning. I loved the trial too, I have high interest in stuff like that as someone wanting to go into Forensic or Criminal Psychology in the future, and I felt it was really well-written, and I learned so much!

The only thing that really bothered me was the second police officer, Leary, and her view from the start. I feel like we live in times where biased views should be weeded out. There are plenty of cases in the past century, where individuals have been wrongfully convicted, and it stresses to me that Leary should have been been suspended or otherwise for pursuing Dutch after there was no evidence.

Highly recommend if you love courtroom dramas and thrillers!

I give Stephen M. Murphy's Abiding Conviction 4 out of 5 stars. The pros are a good plot that keeps raising the stakes and a satisfying ending that successfully addresses all the plot points. The cons are the lack of character arcs and the somewhat boring (and ineffective) courtroom scenes to the plot.

My issue, though, is that the courtroom scenes have very little to do with the book. I call this pointless filler. In other words, Dutch could have been writing in his diary, or a grocery list, or even going to the movies. The solution to the issue (Ginnie got kidnapped) had only a tangential intersection to the legal case at hand (Judge Garcia accused of murdering Maureen).

The pointless filler, in combination with the lack of a character arc, is why I deducted a star. In the end, Ginnie realizes that she wants to have a family. But she is not a main character. It was Dutch who needed to have the change of heart ... that Ginnie gave up her career to be with him, so he will support her in any decision that she makes.

Excellent, fast paced legal thriller. Characters are well developed. Two main story lines are intertwined in this legal drama and both are told well. I highly recommend this book and look forward to his next novel.

This ARC was provided to me via Kindle, Oceanview Publishing and by #NetGalley. Opinions expressed are completely my own.


I found this one slow overall. I couldn’t stay engaged throughout, the reveal was underwhelming and underplayed.

This was an OK read but wasn’t the edge-of-your-seat courtroom drama that I was hoping for. It’s a dual story about a lawyer who is defending a judge accused of murdering his wife, when his own wife is kidnapped. I found it hard to believe that the lawyer would carry on working in these circumstances! At one point the lawyer, Dutch Francis, and his private investigator, Hedges, visit an address where they suspect the husband may be holding Francis’ kidnapped wife. The wife answers the door and tells them her husband isn’t in, and they leave a business card. Just a few pages later they tell the police “She’s not at his house either. His wife reluctantly gave us permission to search.” No she didn’t – she didn’t even invite them inside! I found the whole book a bit slow paced and there seemed to be lots of unnecessary repetition and padding. For example in Chapter 26 Hedges tells Francis that he stopped by Mrs Handford’s house but no one answered. In the next chapter he tells him the exact same thing. Then we have pages and pages of narrative with Dr Gumina the forensic psychiatrist who was going to give testimony at the trial, but after a mock cross-examination which seemed to go on forever Francis decides not to call her. Those pages seemed pointless to me. So, just an OK book for me, and sorry I can’t be more positive. Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC.

I want to thank. NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

An interesting premise, but sadly I felt that the story didn’t really meet expectations. The dual threads of the death of the judge’s wife and the disappearance of the lawyer’s wife seemed to me to be rather ‘managed’ and I was hoping for a more defined link between the 2 cases.

The ‘reveal’ proved rather underwhelming and was so underplayed that it could have been easily missed if I hadn’t been paying attention.

I’m sorry to be so dismissive in giving this book a very average rating.

This book was sent to me electronically for review by Netgalley. I enjoyed this author…I enjoy books by this publisher…the author has woven a story of mystery and intrigue that is difficult to put down…murder…kidnapping…poisoning…friendship…family dynamics,..torture…all make up this mystery…the protagonist is a likable character, an attorney who helps people…he spends his time in court and looking for his missing wife…there are many red herrings in the book…don’t be misled…try this one and enjoy…