A warm welcome to all the new readers who have joined us recently. Whether you found me through the Proxy Legal Thriller Series, the Merit Bridges Legal Thrillers, another reader, or one of the online promotions, it’s good to have you!
And today is a day I’ve been looking forward to for a long time.
Lawyer By Proxy, Book 4 in the Proxy Legal Thriller Series, is officially available!
Quinton Bell is back in the courtroom with a new client, a missing body, and a murder case built almost entirely on circumstantial evidence.
But the case is only part of the danger. Someone is asking questions about Quinton’s past. And longtime readers know just how dangerous that could be.
LAWYER BY PROXY
How do you defend a man accused of a no-body murder?
Houston attorney Quinton Bell is about to find out.
No body. A cabin soaked in blood. And a client the evidence says is guilty.
Energy executive Nolan Voss has vanished from a company retreat, leaving behind a blood-soaked cabin and enough evidence to convince police he’s dead. Their prime suspect is Edmond Rusk, Voss’s second in command, and Quinton’s newest client.
The murder case against Rusk is almost entirely circumstantial. Unfortunately, almost every circumstance points straight at him. But Quinton knows that a convincing story isn’t necessarily the truth.
As Quinton and his defense team prepare for trial, they uncover conflicts inside Voss’s powerful energy company and questions surrounding a multimillion-dollar sale.
But the murder trial isn’t Quinton’s only problem.
Quinton discovers someone is watching him.
Someone is asking questions about a man who supposedly died years ago. The man Quinton used to be.
Quinton Bell is now living as a lawyer by proxy.
With his client’s freedom on the line and his own past closing in, Quinton must unravel one mystery without exposing another. Because in this courtroom, the man on trial isn’t the only one with something to hide.
LAWYER BY PROXY is Book 4 in the Proxy Legal Thriller Series. A courtroom drama, hidden identities, and an attorney whose greatest secret may be the lie he lives every day.
A Sneak Peek from Lawyer By Proxy
Quinton’s phone vibrated in his hand, and he looked down casually, expecting a robocall or a calendar reminder he’d forgotten to dismiss, or maybe an alert from an app he didn’t remember setting. The screen showed a login approval request. For half a second, his thumb moved out of habit to deny it. Then he saw the account name: Byron Douglas.
The sidewalk noise seemed too thin around him, his vision blurred to milky white, and his feet felt stuck in concrete. He read the name again, although he had no reason to, as the letters were black text on a pale screen. There was nothing dramatic about it except the name itself.
Byron Douglas. A dead man’s name. Below the account moniker was the device identifier: Staten Island Ferry 1917. All from a former account in his prior life, a life he had left behind.
Quinton felt the muscles in his jaw tighten. The valet asked another customer for a ticket number. A tall woman laughed beside him. A horn tapped once in the street. Life, indifferent as ever, continued. Still, the lack of transparency in his vision remained.
He angled the phone away from the tall woman who might glance down. The movement was automatic, and so was the next one. He lifted his eyes and scanned the sidewalk. A couple was waiting near the curb, and two women in business clothes were shaking hands. Another valet slid behind the wheel of a silver Mercedes and paid no attention to him.
That was the trouble with being watched: it appeared as if no one was watching. The amateur stared, but the professional didn’t. The truly dangerous person did not appear to be looking at all.
The phone waited for his answer. Approve? Deny?
Quinton stared at the prompt and grabbed hold of himself. It could be something innocuous. It could be a leftover from his New York days that meant nothing but technology catching up. Or maybe some database sold and resold until it landed in the hands of a bored criminal from a data farm in a country he would never visit.
Quinton hadn’t used that login combination since Byron Douglas had been buried under plans and careful decisions. Accounts had been closed, records minimized, and old ties cut. Digital trails had been cleaned where necessary, and enough left so as not to call attention to his intentional disappearance. He’d done all he could to live as Quinton Bell in Houston. He was set up to walk into courtrooms and care for other people’s lives while protecting his own.
Quinton watched the screen but did not deny or approve. The screen changed to expired. There was no usable location or IP address. No explanation, just the account and the aborted attempt.
New to the Proxy Legal Thriller Series?
If you’re one of our new readers, welcome!
The series begins with Dead By Proxy, when an attorney whose life has been destroyed makes an extraordinary decision. He fakes his own death and assumes the identity of his deceased best friend.
It gives him another chance at life.
It also gives him a secret he can never afford to have exposed.
Now, four books into the series, that secret is becoming harder to protect.
Thank You
There’s something special about publication day. A book that has lived on my computer and in my head for months finally belongs to readers.
And that’s my favorite part.
Thank you to those of you who have been with Quinton from the beginning, and welcome again to those who are just discovering him.
Happy Reading,
Manning
