Robert Dugoni has a new series out; it’s the Keera Duggan series, and the second mystery, “Beyond Reasonable Doubt” is a good one. In fact, it’s so good that if you read it and haven’t read the first book in the series, “Her Deadly Game,” you might want to go back and read that one. Main character Keera Duggan is a criminal defense attorney, and she works with her father in the family law firm. The first book tells us more about her backstory, but we know she began her law career as a prosecutor, then left after a misguided relationship with her superior went south.

This story opens with a rape trial. On a personal note, I’ll never forget what a criminal attorney once told me about criminal law. He said, “When you practice criminal law, you end up feeling like a criminal.” While I’m sure that it isn’t the case for most criminal lawyers, at the end of the rape trial, after Keera gets her client off, she’s not feeling proud of her work. Her father assures her that what they do is make the system work. If the system can’t prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the defendant did the crime, then the defendant must be found not guilty. That doesn’t help Keera, who believes that her client did rape the victim; she knows that a rape victim didn’t get justice, and a rapist just went free.

After that trial, Keera plans a vacation. Relaxing, sleeping late, staying at home and doing nothing. But an urgent text from her sister calls her back into the office, where she sees a face from her past. Jenna Bernstein and her father are sitting in the office conference room. Keera and Jenna had gone to school together. Their parents thought they’d be a great match for friendship as Keera’s older siblings were much older and Jenna was an only child. But as Keera relates stories from her childhood, in which Jenna was not just a mean girl but a borderline psychopath, we see how impossible it would be for Keera to represent Jenna in what she is to face: a trial for the murder of her former business partner and lover.

Jenna had become a wunderkind at the age of twenty-two when she started a biotech company whose promise seemed that they could create a product that would be a fountain of youth. It would cure disease and rewrite the path of illnesses. Jenna appeared on the covers of magazines and was interviewed extensively. She raised billions of dollars for her company. But a few years previously, the chief scientist at the company had met with Jenna and told her that the rosy picture she was giving investors and the public were based on lies, and he was planning on going public with that information. The actual science was nowhere near what was being promised. That night, the scientist was shot and killed in his home. Jenna was tried for the crime, but Keera’s father Patsy got her off. The biotech company fell apart, and federal investigators are still examining the principals in the company for fraud.

Now, Patsy is in rehab after falling off the wagon, and Keera is the lead trial attorney in the firm. While her older sister Ella is a capable attorney, Keera’s background in chess, which is a big part of the first book in the series, has helped her think more than one move ahead of her opposing counsel. Keera is able to look at the big picture and figure out how to mislead her opponents in different ways. Make your opponent think you are going to move at one side of the chess board, but make your surprise offensive from the other side. This is what has made her a very successful trial attorney.

Jenna and her father are in the law office because Jenna’s former partner, personally and in business, Sirus Kohl, was found murdered, shot in his home. It seems certain that Jenna will be charged with the crime. And when details come out about Jenna putting on a disguise and walking to the park that is behind Kohl’s home the night of the murder, it seems a slam dunk that she will be convicted of the crime. The problem is that there is no smoking gun. Literally. The gun can’t be found and there is no direct evidence linking Jenna to the crime scene. The only clues are a few text messages that were exchanged by Jenna and Sirus the night of the murder.

Keera knows that Jenna is an incredibly gifted prevaricator. Her lies are extremely convincing; they are the reason she was not convicted in the first murder trial of the scientist. Keera also isn’t sure she is willing to represent Jenna after their horrible childhood past. But when she learns more about something that Jenna’s father did for Patsy, an act of incredible kindness, she rethinks. She also considers her father’s advice that sometimes, the most difficult cases are the ones that you learn the most from.

Of course, Keera does end up representing her childhood nemesis at the criminal trial. What she does is what she does best. She gets her client off. But her client isn’t happy about the manner in which she does it. So in a sense, Keera gets her payback, but she also does what other attorneys might not have been able to do. And along the way, she learns—and therefor we learn—about compassion and looking through the image people project into who they really are. Jenna’s tough exterior hid a very different interior. And so it was not a happy ending for all, but an ending with, perhaps, justice for all. Those who will be investing in the series will be pleased with the progression of Keera’s personal life and the glimpse of who a romantic interest will be. Each book in this series is fascinating and delivers a nail-biting trial and characters who evoke our compassion in spite of their failures and weaknesses.

This review was first posted on Bookreporter.com.