A Fool for a Client

One evening, 23-year-old medical student Justine Levy dressed up in her most slutty attire, went out to a New York bar and picked up ex-IRA terrorist Sean Murphy. One dinner date later, Murphy is dead and Justine is on trial for murder and branded a revenge-crazed vigilante. "They say that anyone who conducts their own defense has a fool for a client." But Justine insists on conducting her own defense, despite the advice and admonition of the judge. She has that right under the 6th Amendment. But the judge reckons it's a big mistake, so he appoints young African-American rookie lawyer Rick Parker to act as standby counsel. But who was the dead man - Sean Murphy? And why would Justine kill him? Was it some kind of revenge for his past as an IRA terrorist? As skilled prosecutor Dan Abrams steadily builds up his case, exposing Justine as a ruthless vigilante, Justine remains tight-lipped, resisting all efforts by Rick Parker to help her as she continues to present her own defense. She also has no apparent connection to the IRA herself, neither as terrorist nor victim. But if it was for revenge, was it personal or political? Is she really the vigilante that she is being portrayed as? And was she justified? For her lawyer it is fast becoming personal because he is falling for her. But is that too part of her scheme? And who will ultimately decide her fate? The jury? The ruthless terrorist from an IRA breakaway faction who has come to New York to kill her in his own act of revenge? Or the rival terrorist from the provisional IRA who has come in pursuit of the gunman in order to avoid alienating their friends in America by committing terrorism on US soil regardless of any desire for revenge. ---------- The pinnacle of Sean Murphy's career as an IRA terrorist was when he blew up a doctor and a three-year-old child in a busy shopping mall. But when he fled to New York and thwarted attempts to extradite him, he set in motion a chain of events that not even he could have anticipated. Now Murphy is dead in an apparent revenge killing and Justine Levy, a 23-year-old American medical student, is on trial for his murder - and she is conducting her own defence. But if she poisoned him - as the prosecution claims - then why did he die of a different poison to the one she gave him? And was Justine a vigilante or was her motive more personal? Will she be found guilty? David Kessler's first thriller doesn't just excite and mystify, it also asks some tough questions about revenge, vigilante justice, the IRA and the rights of the victim. It also contains a merciless attack on the organizations in America that funded "the relatives" of IRA terrorist prisoners - such as Noraid - and a look at the role of the Irish-American lobby in promoting terrorism against the United Kingdom. On of the great ironies noted by author David Kessler is that a US senator who who openly supported the IRA at the height of their terrorism, subsequently became chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security where he was in charge of combating terrorism against the United States. On the one hand, he is tainted by his pro-terrorism credentials. On the other hand, the terrorism against his own country after they refuse to extradite IRA terrorists is a classic example of the saying "what goes around, comes around." Or as Malcolm X would have put it: the chickens coming home to roost.