Silent Witness

Product Description Attorney Tony Lord left his hometown and the bitter memories of his girlfriend's murder behind. Now, twenty-eight years later, he's pulled back to Lake City to defend his closest high school friend against a charge of homicide.Sam Robb, the married father of two, is a local football legend. But he was also the last to see sixteen-year-old Marcie Calder alive, and as shocking forensic evidence at the trial reveals, he is the father of her unborn child.Probing the darkest recesses of love and friendship, Lord will discover things too disturbing to ignore--that Sam wasn't the only one in Lake City with a motive for killing Marcie, that small-town secrets can hide devastating betrayals, and that the past has a way of repeating itself . . . even in murder.From the Paperback edition. Review "This generation's best writer of legal thrillers . . . His strongest fiction to date."--Entertainment Weekly"Enthralling . . . The denouement is powerful."--Los Angeles Times Book Review"Intense courtroom drama . . . As startling as the bang of a gavel."--PeopleA Main Selection of The Literary GuildFrom the Paperback edition. From the Inside Flap Attorney Tony Lord left his hometown and the bitter memories of his girlfriend's murder behind. Now, twenty-eight years later, he's pulled back to Lake City to defend his closest high school friend against a charge of homicide.Sam Robb, the married father of two, is a local football legend. But he was also the last to see sixteen-year-old Marcie Calder alive, and as shocking forensic evidence at the trial reveals, he is the father of her unborn child.Probing the darkest recesses of love and friendship, Lord will discover things too disturbing to ignore--that Sam wasn't the only one in Lake City with a motive for killing Marcie, that small-town secrets can hide devastating betrayals, and that the past has a way of repeating itself . . . even in murder.From the Paperback edition. About the Author Richard North Patterson studied fiction writing with Jesse Hill Ford at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He has written eight novels, including the international bestsellers Degree of Guilt and Eyes of a Child. The Final Judgment is being developed as a miniseries by NBC. Until recently a trial lawyer, Patterson lives with his wife, Laurie, and their family in San Francisco and on Martha's Vineyard.From the Paperback edition. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Silent Witness: ExcerptTwo days before her seventeenth birthday, Marcie Calder killed herself; died in a fall; or was murdered.A half hour from landing in Steelton, Anthony Lord reviewed what little he knew. From the pictures in the newspaper, Marcie appeared dark and slight and pretty. She was the oldest daughter of a family with three girls; a solid B student at Lake City High School; an observant Catholic who was a member of Tony's old parish, Saint Raphael's. The Steelton Press described her as shy; her best friend, Janice D'Abruzzi, interviewed after the funeral, said that she had not dated anyone special. The newspaper accounts of the grief counseling that followed, a chance for her fellow students to face what had happened, told Tony less about Marcie than about the feverish contagion of teenage sadness, the grim resolve of the town to cope with the inexplicable. Not since the murder of Alison Taylor, Principal Burton said, had Lake City suffered such a tragedy. The thing he most remembered about Marcie struck Tony Lord as rather sad: that she was the fastest girl on the track team and, when competing, ran with a joy and abandon that was beautiful to watch.Four days prior to her death, in her last competition as a runner, Marcie had done poorly. Afterward, her teammates recalled, she was listless, unresponsive. On the following morning, the police had found her on the beach below Taylor Park, a ribbon of blood on her head and cheek. From the condition of th