Hollis Morgan Mystery

The Fallen Angels Book Club has only two requirements: the members must love books and have a white-collar criminal record. Hollis Morgan fits the bill. Left holding the bag in an insurance fraud scheme concocted by her now ex-husband, she served her time and is trying to rebuild her life. All she wants is for the court to pardon her conviction so she can return to law school. After one of her fellow members is murdered in a scenario straight out of a club selection, Hollis is once again the subject of police scrutiny. Refusing to get stuck with another bad rap, she sets out to investigate her fellow club members. Is one of them really blackmailing the others? As a second member dies in yet another book-inspired murder, Hollis realizes that time is running out. Everything rides on her finding the killer-not just her career aspirations. She must identify the killer before she herself becomes the next victim. Everyone is convinced she knows more than she lets on. But what is it, exactly, that is she supposed to know? The Fallen Angels Book Club is the first book in an exciting new mystery series featuring amateur sleuth Hollis Morgan. R. Franklin James grew up in the San Francisco East Bay Area and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley. She and her husband currently live in northern California. The Fallen Angels Book Club is her first novel and the first book in the Hollis Morgan Mystery series. You can find R. Franklin on the Web at rfranklinjames.com. Set in the Bay Area of California, this series features an exonerated ex-con paralegal then attorney who practices probate law, and later, criminal law.

Probate attorney Hollis Morgan is branching out into criminal law. Pardoned after serving time for her then-husband's white-collar crime, she knows something about the workings of the criminal mind. Hollis' first criminal case quickly gets complicated. Her client is a young man initially accused of identity theft, but his charge soon includes murder. Hollis has a knack for detecting lies, and although Justin Eastland lies with every breath, she doesn't believe he is a killer. Eastland is let out on bail as bait, and Hollis struggles to keep her client alive. She enlists the services of her young friend Vince, a former addict she helped get back on track, telling him to not let Eastland out of his sight. At the same time Hollis is handling a sensitive probate matter for a whistle-blower hiding from a revengeful cartel. It has not been easy for Hollis to learn to trust again, and in both these cases, a surprising number of people are not telling her the whole story. She thinks she can sort the truths from the half-truths and the outright lies, but how reliable are her instincts? Hollis' sense of justice does not always consider the law. If she's wrong, her clients aren't the only ones who could lose their lives. The sixth and final book in the Hollis Morgan mystery series. R. Franklin James grew up in the San Francisco East Bay Area and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley. She and her husband currently live in northern California. The Fallen Angels Book Club is her first novel and the first book in the Hollis Morgan Mystery series. You can find R. Franklin on the Web at rfranklinjames.com. Set in the Bay Area of California, this series features an exonerated ex-con paralegal then attorney who practices probate law, and later, criminal law.

Hollis Morgan has come a long way since serving time for her ex-husband's white-collar crimes. After receiving a state pardon, she is now a probate attorney at the Bay Area firm where she began as a paralegal. In a case close to home, her manager, George Ravel, inherits a fortune from his newly found birth mother, but her dead husband's heirs are overcome with greed, not grief. They are determined to discredit her will and deny her natural son even one cent of the millions they believe should belong to their father's estate. George asks Hollis to handle the case, but her attention is divided. A dead woman has been discovered with Hollis's business card-one that dates back to Hollis's years on parole. The police don't believe Hollis's claim that she never met Olivia Shur. As it turns out, she did know the woman, only under another name. At the time of her death, Olivia Shur possessed a list that could end the careers and lives of several public officials and prominent businessmen. Copies of the list exist. Someone believes Hollis has one of them and will go to any extreme to obtain it. To protect her friends and stay alive, Hollis turns to her ex-con buddies from the Fallen Angels Book Club. In this case, there are too many people on both sides of the law who are determined to see her stopped. The Trade List is Book 4 of the Hollis Morgan Mysteries, which began with The Fallen Angels Book Club. R. Franklin James grew up in the San Francisco East Bay Area and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley. She and her husband currently live in northern California. The Fallen Angels Book Club is her first novel and the first book in the Hollis Morgan Mystery series. You can find R. Franklin on the Web at rfranklinjames.com. Set in the Bay Area of California, this series features an exonerated ex-con paralegal then attorney who practices probate law, and later, criminal law.

Hollis Morgan has survived imprisonment, received a pardon and persevered to finally become a probate attorney. Tough as she is, her newest case will further test her mettle. She discovers her client, Matthias Bell, is a deceased blackmailer whose last wish was to return the damaging documents letting his victims off the hook. It falls to Hollis to give them the good news. But it becomes apparent that Bell was murdered, and the victims of "Bell's tolls" are now suspects. Hollis' white-collar criminal past has left her with keen survival instincts. A gifted liar, she knows a liar when she sees one. A lot of people in this case are lying and one is a killer. On top of that, she's also representing a dying stripper, a wealthy widow whose estranged daughter spurns her attempts at reconciliation, but whose husband sees the potential inheritance as mending all wounds. Clients aside, Hollis is defensive and wary. Her mother, who hasn't spoken to her for years, needs a kidney, and Hollis is a match, but neither are ready to put away the past. With Hollis' fiancé and emotional support off on an undercover mission for Homeland Security, she must count on her own survival instincts. She is swept along on an emotional roller coaster as her absent love and her family's coldness take their own toll. Work is her salvation. The specter of a killer keeps her focused. Hollis has always had to rely on her wits, but now she finds that others who don't have her well-being in mind are relying on them as well. Book 5 in the Hollis Morgan Mystery series, which began with The Fallen Angels Book Club. R. Franklin James grew up in the San Francisco East Bay Area and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley. She and her husband currently live in northern California. The Fallen Angels Book Club is her first novel and the first book in the Hollis Morgan Mystery series. You can find R. Franklin on the Web at rfranklinjames.com. Set in the Bay Area of California, this series features an exonerated ex-con paralegal then attorney who practices probate law, and later, criminal law.