Annal:1995 Edgar Allan Poe Award® for Best Paperback Original

Final Appeal

Lisa Scottoline

• 1995 Edgar-Paperback winner
• Score: 10.45

To Philadelphia lawyer Grace Rossi, who’s starting over after a divorce, a part-time job with a federal appeals court sounds perfect. But Grace doesn’t count on being assigned to an explosive death penalty appeal. Nor does she expect ardor in the court, in the form of an affair with her boss, Chief Judge Armen Gregorian. Then the truly unimaginable happens, and Grace finds herself investigating a murder.

As Grace searches for the truth, she unearths a six-figure bank account kept by a judge with an alias; breaks into another judge’s chambers; and follows a trail of bribery and judicial corruption that’s stumped even the FBI.

In no time at all, Grace under fire takes on a whole new meaning.

Power of Attorney

Walter Sorrells

• 1995 Edgar-Paperback nominee
• Score: 6.45

Alanta attorney Bobby Vine has seen the law in action—in the boardroom, in the courtroom, and in the street. Once he took the fall for a false friend in a shady investment scam. Now he’s being framed for the conman’s murder, and getting pulled into an inescapable maelstrom of conspiracy and corruption. Original.

Sunrise

Chassie West

• 1995 Edgar-Paperback nominee
• Score: 6.45

Big-city cop Leigh Ann Warren is coming back to Sunrise, North Carolina, to escape the pressures of the job—and her guilt over nearly causing the death of her partner Duck. But things have changed here since she was a girl. Tensions over plans to develop hallowed ground for commercial purposes are tearing a once close-knit community to pieces.

Leigh Ann hoped to stay neutral, but a decades-old murder, newly unearthed, is dragging her down into a whirlpool of fear and small-town secrets. And a killer still lurking in the shadows of Sunrise is about to strike again—this time, too close to home.

The Broken-Hearted Detective: A Vinnie Altobelli Mystery

Milton Bass

• 1995 Edgar-Paperback nominee
• Score: 6.45

The acclaimed mystery series that began with The Half-Hearted Detective continues with another hilarious mystery. Ex-cop-turned-gumshoe Vinnie Altob elli goes on a frantic search for Betty Wade, his angel of mercy who is inexplicably AWOL in Arizona. Original.

Viper Quarry

Dean Feldmeyer

• 1995 Edgar-Paperback nominee
• Score: 6.45

In his suspenseful debut novel, Feldmeyer introduces a charmingly humorous new mystery series starring the eminently likeable Reverend Dan Thompson, and his Methodist parish in the black hills of Kentucky. The small town of Baird is shaken by the arson deaths of a sweet old couple, and Thompson investigates.