Showing results by author "Laura Caldwell" in All Categories

Recalling the great muckrakers of the past, an outraged team of America's best-selling writers unite to confront the disasters of wrongful convictions. Wrongful convictions, long regarded as statistical anomalies in an otherwise sound justice system, now appear with frightening regularity. But few people understand just how or why they happen and, more important, the immeasurable consequences that often haunt the lucky few who are acquitted years after they are proven innocent.

Nineteen-year-old Jovan Mosley, a good kid from one of Chicago's very bad neighborhoods, was coerced into confessing to a crime he didn't commit. Charged with murder, he spent five years and eight months in a prison for violent criminals. Without a trial. Jovan grew up on the rough streets of Chicago's Southeast Side. With one brother dead of HIV complications, another in jail for arson and murder, and most kids his age in gangs, Jovan struggled to be different. Until his arrest, he was.

Stylist Jessica Champlin knows it takes more than a darling goldendoodle to save a marriage. She and her ex-husband, investigative journalist Sebastian Hess, had too many irreconcilable differences for even their beloved dog Baxter to heal. So they've agreed to joint custody, and life has settled into a prickly normalcy.

They say bad things happen in threes. When her fiancé, Sam, disappears on the same day her mentor and biggest client is killed, hotshot Chicago attorney Izzy McNeil starts counting. But trouble keeps coming. Sam is implicated in the client's death, her apartment is broken into and it's not just the authorities who are following her.

Forbidden relationships are the most tempting. And the most dangerous.It was a crime of passion—or so the police say. Valerie Solara has been charged with poisoning her best friend. The prosecution claims she's always been secretly attracted to Amanda's husband… and with Amanda gone, she planned to make her move.

Chicago attorney Izzy McNeil is ready to take a break from private investigation and focus on her career in criminal law. But as a favor, she agrees to work with Madeline Saga, a beautiful art gallery owner who fears that artwork she has sold is fake. Who in Madeline's tight circle of artists and gallery owners is guilty of the forgeries? When Madeline's life is threatened, Izzy is suddenly asking a more troublesome question: Who wants the gallery owner dead? As the case spins out of control, there's only one person who makes Izzy feel safe—Detective Damon Vaughn. But getting close to her former nemesis is full of surprises. Astonishing truths about the glittering Chicago art scene will introduce Izzy to the deadliest art of deception.…

Chicago is the Windy City, and these days the winds of change are whipping Izzy McNeil's life all over the map. A high-profile job on Trial TV lands her in the hot seat. After a shocking end to her engagement, she finds herself juggling not only her ex-fiancé, but a guy she never expected. And a moonlighting undercover gig has her digging deep into worlds she barely knew existed.

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. But what if you can't tell which is which? When attorney Izzy McNeil's home is broken into, right after her boyfriend, Theo, moves in, she ignores the coincidence. When Theo is arrested on charges of fraud, she wants to believe he's innocent. But when a neighbor is found dead, she can't ignore that something is very, very wrong. Izzy also can't forget how Theo was inexplicably turned down for a mortgage. Or his recent moody silences....

Izzy McNeil is hot on the trail of one of Chicago's most notorious gangsters. Not that he realizes the crimson-tressed enchantress, a self-proclaimed "lapsed lawyer", is moonlighting as a private investigator. But when an unexpected run-in trashes Izzy's cover, she's swept into an evil underworld where she is definitely not safe.

Laura Caldwell, the author of Red Hot Lies, stopped by our studios recently to see the narrator of her book, Nancy Liem, in action. The two had a fascinating discussion about bringing Caldwell's characters to life in print and in audio, as well as about their lives outside of writing and acting (Caldwell is a law school professor, Liem a human rights activist).

The choices Casey Evers has made in her 26 years aren't exactly making her happy. In fact, her life is so on course - college, law school, boyfriend, job offer - that it's actually off. So, before she slides into 14-hour days at a Chicago law firm, she heads to Rome and Greece with her two best friends for one last hurrah. The thing is, her best friends haven't really been all that close to her since she started seeing John two years ago, she hasn't been all that close to John lately, and she's awfully partial to Mediterranean men...