Finished 12-31-07. ( )

David Sloane is an extremely successful San Francisco trial lawyer with a dark past. He specializes in defending companies against wrongful death cases. His world unravels, however, after he receives a mysterious package from one of the president’s closest advisors -- a man who has apparently just committed suicide in a West Virginia national park. Soon, a pair of hitmen are after him. After barely surviving one attack -- an attack that leaves an elderly woman dead -- Sloane manages to elude another attack at UCSF Medical Center. In order to figure out what is happening to him, Sloane travels to Washington, DC, eventually teaming up with a West Virginia police detective (who had been told not to investigate the "suicide") and a former CIA agent who had once been the dead man's partner. The mystery involves a covert CIA operation thirty years earlier and leads Sloane all the way to the Oval Office. ( )

David Sloane is a skillful lawyer, who always seems to be able to convince the jury to see things his way. His life as a lawyer is interrupted when he gets a mysterious message and package from Washington. It seems to have something to do with a former advisor to the president who has recently turned up dead. David embarks on a quest to find out what is going on and why people are trying to kill him, and along the way discovers that the nightmares of his childhood could really be memories of an ugly truth.
A good solid suspense novel, everything seemed to flow pretty well. I liked the character of the rumpled police detective who helps David out. It seems like a good first effort, but doesn't stand out as outstanding. ( )