Hannah has left her alcoholic, dependent mother in Maine for the University of Virginia. There she uses deceit and some dirty tricks to get onto the Innocence Project. In particular, she gets herself onto the case of Michael Dandridge.
Dandridge has been in jail for 11 years, found guilty of rape and murder. However, his sentence has recently been vacated. The original prosecutor is determined to retry him.
Hannah’s goal is to interfere with the project’s defense of Dandridge. We learn why slowly as passages from her mother’s diary are revealed, dated 25 years before.
I wasn’t sure what I thought about McTiernan’s change of locale, her other novels being set in Ireland, but her storytelling took over, and I found myself reading another page-turner. Although I was not sure that things could turn out the way they did, I found the novel thrilling.
What? Me Read? 
What did you think of her first in her series, The Ruin, can you remember? I really enjoyed The Murder Rule, but didn’t get on with The Ruin at all and wondered if it was just because it was her first, and the later ones might be better?
I enjoyed it, although it wasn’t the best mystery novel I ever read. It looked like it was going to be the first in a series, but then she only ever wrote one more. Maybe she decided she didn’t want to do series books.
Oh, really? I thought there had been several books in the series. I probably won’t bother then! 😉
She has written four or five books, but only two in the series.