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Defending a client accused of killing her father, attorney Paul Madriani is drawn into a treacherous conspiracy dating to World War II in this enthralling installment in the New York Times bestselling series.Paul Madriani and Harry Hinds have a new client: Emma Brauer, a woman accused in the "mercy killing" of her aged father, Robert Brauer. Insisting she's innocent, Emma tells Paul about a package sent to her father shortly before he entered the hospital. Bequeathed to him by a member of his unit from World War II, the box contains a key and a slip of paper. Emma fears that this package is connected to her father's death.When Paul's young assistant Sofia is murdered, Madriani is blindsided by the realization that Emma's fears are well-grounded.Digging into Robert's military history, Madriani discovers that other members of the Army unit Robert served with have recently died - under similarly suspicious circumstances. When he finds that the box sent to Brauer relates to a mysterious talisman that went missing at the end of the war - a feared Nazi relic known as the "Blood Flag" - Madriani and Hinds realize they are in for the fight of their lives.With Emma's life on the line and their own safety in jeopardy, Madriani must uncover the truth before the evil of the Blood Flag is allowed to spin a new web.



About the Author

Steve Martini

Martini's first career was in journalism. He worked as a newspaper reporter for the Los Angeles Daily Journal, the largest legal newspaper in the country covering the state, the local courts and the civic center beat. In 1970 he became the newspaper's first correspondent at the State Capitol in Sacramento and later its bureau chief. There he specialized in legal and political coverage. During this period he attended night law school and in 1974 took his law degree from the University of the Pacific's McGeorge School of Law. He was admitted to the Bar in January 1975. Martini has practiced law both privately as well as for public agencies appearing in state and federal courts. During his law career, in addition to other activities, he worked as a legislative representative for the California Department of Consumer Affairs, the State Bar of California, and served as special counsel to the California Victims of Violent Crimes Program. He has worked as an administrative hearing officer, a supervising hearing officer, an administrative law judge, and for a time served as Deputy Director of the State Office of Administrative Hearings. He is currently inactive with the State Bar of California, choosing writing instead as a full-time occupation. In the mid-1980s Martini began his fiction-writing career. His first attempt at a novel, The Simeon Chamber, was represented by an agent and sold to the New York publisher D.I. Fine within two weeks of its submission. It was published in 1987. Compelling Evidence, his second novel, introduced his series character, attorney Paul Madriani, and was published by G.P. Putnam & Sons. A national bestseller, the novel earned Martini a critical and popular following. It was followed quickly by New York Times bestsellers Prime Witness, Undue Influence, The Judge, and The Attorney, each featuring the series character Madriani and his contrarian and irrepressible law partner, Harry Hinds. The List, published in 1997, a novel and thriller about the commercial book publishing industry, was the first Martini novel to depart from the series characters since the author reached the best sellers list. Critical Mass, his next novel published in 1998, continued the departure from the courtroom as well as the Madriani series, though it involved a lawyer protagonist and was well within the legal-thriller genre. Critical Mass addressed issues of terrorism and the threat from weapons of mass destruction two years before the events of 9/11. It was a topic to which Martini would return in later years.Other novels by Martini include: The Jury, The Arraignment, Double Tap, Shadow of Power, Guardian of Lies, The Rule of Nine, and Trader of Secrets.To date, two network mini-series have been produced and broadcast based on Martini's works, Undue Influence by CBS, and The Judge on NBC.



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