Ashley Montgomery

When a defense attorney becomes the defendant, one small town is forced to reconsider their ideas of good and evil. Successful public defender Ashley Montgomery helps acquit yet another client and people in small-town Brine, Iowa are enraged. Following the verdict, a protest breaks out, and the hated defense attorney quickly finds her life in danger. But little does Ashley know, things are about to get worse-much worse. One of her clients turns up dead, and Ashley is arrested for his murder. As local investigators Katie Mickey and George Thomanson dive into the case, they start to suspect that Ashely is being framed...but by whom? With Ashley's freedom at stake, Katie and George are desperate to find out the truth. And soon, they uncover a sinister plot born of corruption, greed, and misplaced loyalty that will leave the whole town reeling and questioning their faith in the people they trusted most.

Public defender Ashley Montgomery's latest case will push her to the limit. When teenager Rachel Smithson is charged with murdering her newborn baby in a hotel room, Ashley is appointed to represent her. Determined to prove her client innocent, Ashley delves into the secret life and relationships of the quiet teen, and turns up more questions than answers. Meanwhile, Ashley's longtime friend and sometimes rival, police officer Katie Mickey, investigates the alleged murder with the aim of ensuring Rachel's conviction. Despite working against each other, the two women begin to share the same awful suspicions, and the tragic case takes an even darker turn when rumors surface that the father of Rachel's baby is an adult in her life. Then Ashley falls victim to a personal attack, and she and Mickey find themselves racing to unmask a different, far more dangerous offender.

Nobody is surprised when a fire erupts on a property owned by Frank Vinny, who's been using the wooded lot for the highly flammable process of meth manufacturing-until two bodies are pulled from the wreckage. One is Frank Vinny himself. The other is a teenage girl that can't be identified. As law enforcement targets one of Ashley's clients with ties to Frank as the arsonist, Ashley joins forces with PI Katie Mickey to get a jump on her defense. With evidence stacked against their client, digging into Frank's past is the only way to earn her freedom. Katie and Ashley discover that Frank's involvement in the criminal underworld goes beyond cooking and distributing meth. They uncover a trail of missing teenagers, all of them linked to a series of unforgivable acts that begin and end with Frank Vinny. In their search for the missing girls, Ashley and Katie discover ties that could implicate their client, leading them to an impossible choice: help the girls, or protect their client. With so many lives on the line, Ashley and Katie must navigate a tangled web of high-profile lies and dangerous secrets...even if that means putting their own lives at risk.

When her client is charged with his girlfriend's brutal murder, defense attorney Ashley Montgomery will fight to clear his name in this gripping legal thriller. Public defender Ashley Montgomery is shocked when a well-known local is found in a lake at the outskirts of Brine County, dead and locked inside a large toolbox. Ashley has represented the victim and her boyfriend, Noah, for many years. The Brine County sheriff's department goes after Noah as their main suspect, but Ashley is intent on his innocence, and she injects herself into the investigation to protect him. A search of his house turns up a series of letters addressed to Erica. The letters prove that someone else was in contact with the victim before her death, but a deputy sheriff confiscates them before Ashley can get a closer look. The stakes rise even higher when other women in town begin receiving similar letters, including Rachel, Ashley's close friend and long-term house guest. Now, Ashley must race against the clock to discover the identity of the killer...before he adds another victim to his list.