Sheldon Siegel has jumped onto best seller lists and into readers' and reviewers' affections with seven extraordinary novels featuring San Francisco defense attorneys Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez. He now returns to write about his hometown of Chicago in his electrifying new thriller, THE TERRORIST NEXT DOOR. He's Homeland Security's biggest nightmare. Someone is setting off fire bombs in Chicago in stolen cars using untraceable cell phones. The international terror channels are silent. A group calling itself the Islamic Freedom Federation demands the release of Hassan Al-Shahid, a graduate student whose plan to set off a bomb at the Art Institute was thwarted by Detective David Gold and his long-time partner, Detective Paul Liszewski. Their heroic efforts had cost Liszewski his life and put Gold in the hospital. The FBI and Homeland Security believe the bomber is a freelancer operating off the grid. Meet Detective David Gold. He's a third generation native of South Chicago, the hardscrabble neighborhood of steel mills, smokestacks, and steeples near the Indiana border. He's one of Chicago's most decorated detectives. Meet Gold's new partner, Detective A.C. Battle. He's a native of Mississippi whose family moved to Chicago to escape the Jim Crow South. He grew up in the Robert Taylor Homes across the Dan Ryan Expressway from Mayor Daley's house and Comiskey Park. Gold is suffering from the aftereffects of Liszewski's death when he receives a Medal of Valor on the steps of the Art Institute. During the ceremony, a car bomb is detonated across the street, killing a passerby. Gold soon receives a cryptic text : "It isn't over." It's just the beginning. Untraceable car bombs detonate at the Wrigley Field El station, Millennium Park, the Museum of Science and Industry, O'Hare Airport, the Hyde Park train station, and the upscale Rush Street area. Chicago PD, the FBI and Homeland Security can't trace the bomber, but evidence points toward members of Chicago's Islamic community. As bombs continue to go off, Gold and Battle are drawn into a desperate cat-and-mouse game against a brilliant mind. From its opening scene to its stunning denouement, Siegel writes a lightning paced thriller capturing the complexity and fears of the post-9/11 world. Along the way, he provides an insider's look at Chicago's neighborhoods-from the Magnificent Mile to century-old churches where mass is still celebrated in Polish to crumbling old synagogues and gritty seafood shacks next to the ghostly expanses where the steel mills once stood. "David Gold and A.C. Battle are strong entries in the police-thriller sweepstakes. Sheldon Siegel's THE TERRORIST NEXT DOOR is a smart, surprising and bloody take on the world of Islamic terror. As a crazed bomber threatens to shut down American's third-largest city, the Chicago cops, the FBI, Homeland Security and even the military desperately sift through every clue, reaching for a climax that is both shocking and credible. Siegel tells a story that is fast and furious and authentic." John Sandford. NY Times Best Selling Author of STOLEN PREY. "Sheldon Siegel blows the doors off with his excellent new thriller, THE TERRORIST NEXT DOOR. Bombs, car chases, the shutdown of Chicago, plus Siegel's winning touch with character makes this one not to be missed!" John Lescroart. NY Times Best Selling Author of THE HUNTER. "Sheldon Siegel knows how to make us root for the good guys in this heartstopping terrorist thriller, and David Gold and A.C. Battle are a pair of very good guys. We'd like to see them again." Thomas Perry. NY Times Best Selling Author of POISON FLOWER. "THE TERRORIST NEXT DOOR is a terrific, old-fashioned thriller. Siegel demonstrates why he is a master story teller with the likes of John Sanford and Scott Turow. A taught, tense, action-packed thrill ride that puts a stranglehold on the reader to the explosive end." Robert Dugoni. NY Times Best Selling Author of THE CONVICTION.

The Terrorist Next Door (A David Gold / A.C. Battle Mystery)

Literature & Fiction

Siegel, Sheldon

Literary

Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc.

New York Times best selling author Sheldon Siegel has jumped onto best seller lists and into readers' and reviewers' affections with seven extraordinary novels featuring San Francisco defense attorneys Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez. He now returns to write about his hometown of Chicago in his electrifying new thriller, The Terrorist Next Door. He's Homeland Security's biggest nightmare. Someone is setting off fire bombs in Chicago in stolen cars using untraceable cell phones. The international terror channels are silent. A group calling itself the Islamic Freedom Federation demands the release of Hassan Al-Shahid, a graduate student whose plan to set off a bomb at the Art Institute was thwarted by Detective David Gold and his long-time partner, Detective Paul Liszewski. Their heroic efforts had cost Liszewski his life and put Gold in the hospital. The FBI believes the bomber is a freelancer operating off the grid. Meet Detective David Gold-a third generation native of South Chicago, the hardscrabble neighborhood of steel mills, smokestacks, and steeples near the Indiana border. He's one of Chicago's most decorated detectives. Meet Gold's new partner, Detective A.C. Battle-a native of Mississippi whose family moved to Chicago to escape the Jim Crow South. He grew up in the Robert Taylor Homes across the Dan Ryan Expressway from Comiskey Park. Gold is still suffering from the aftereffects of Liszewski's death when he receives a Medal of Valor at the Art Institute. During the ceremony, a car bomb is detonated across the street, killing a passerby. Gold receives a cryptic text: "It isn't over." It's just the beginning. Untraceable car bombs detonate at the Wrigley Field El station, Millennium Park, the Museum of Science and Industry, O'Hare, Hyde Park, and Rush Street. Chicago PD, the FBI and Homeland Security can't trace the bomber. Gold and Battle are drawn into a desperate cat-and-mouse game against a brilliant mind. From its opening scene to its stunning climax, Siegel writes a lightning paced thriller capturing the complexity and fears of the post-9/11 world. Along the way, he provides a native's look at Chicago's neighborhoods-from the Magnificent Mile to century-old churches where mass is still celebrated in Polish to gritty seafood shacks next to the ghostly expanses where the steel mills once stood. "David Gold and A.C. Battle are strong entries in the police-thriller sweepstakes. The Terrorist Next Door is a smart, surprising and bloody take on the world of Islamic terror. As a crazed bomber threatens to shut down American's third-largest city, the Chicago cops, the FBI, Homeland Security and even the military desperately sift through every clue, reaching for a climax that is shocking and credible. Siegel tells a story that is fast and furious and authentic." John Sandford. NY Times Best Selling Author of Stolen Prey. "Sheldon Siegel has outdone himself in his first true thriller. The rough underbelly of Chicago comes to life as profoundly as in Carl Sandburg's view. The scariest, most thrilling portrayal of what can happen to life in a normal city. A real power play." Katherine Neville. International Best Selling Author of The Fire. "Sheldon Siegel blows the doors off with his excellent new thriller. Bombs, car chases, the shutdown of Chicago, plus Siegel's winning touch with character makes this one not to be missed!" John Lescroart. NY Times Best Selling Author of The Hunter. "All the indicators of a bestselling thriller - fast action, characters you think you've met in real life, bold storytelling and clever plotting. The great city of Chicago comes alive. Excellent." T. Jefferson Parker. NY Times Best Selling Author of Border Lords.

The Terrorist Next Door

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Sheldon Siegel

Mystery

Fate throws a curveball at the San Francisco ex-husband-and-wife legal team of Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez, when Mike picks up the phone and hears the voice of Leon Walker. This is not good news-because Walker was the one who ruined their marriage. Years ago, he and his brother participated in a stickup that left a man dead. Through a series of (some said) questionable maneuvers, Mike got the charges dropped, but he and Rosie fought about it all the time and it finally drove a wedge between them. Now, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist has been found dead in a dumpster on San Francisco's skid row. The new murder has been pinned on Walker, but he not only tells Mike he is innocent, he says he is a dying man and doesn't want to go to his grave proclaimed a murderer. Dogged investigation, courtroom nimbleness, and a healthy dose of luck usually have helped Mike before, but it looks like it'll take more than that to prevail this time, and his time is running out-both on his client and, just maybe, on his partnership.

Final Verdict (Mike Daley/Rosie Fernandez Legal Thriller)

Thrillers & Suspense

Confessions abound-some of them quite unexpected-in Sheldon Siegel's new legal thriller. Mike Daley doesn't go to confession much since he left the priesthood twenty years ago and became a lawyer, but that doesn't stop his old friend, Father Ramon Aguirre, from trying to get him there. "It wouldn't kill you to go to church once in a while," he tells Mike. But it does kill someone. For several months, a ruinous sexual harassment suit has been building against the San Francisco Catholic Archdiocese, and when the plaintiff's lawyer is found dead, an apparent suicide, an almost audible sigh of relief is heard in certain quarters. But that is before the police find evidence of murder. Even worse-the evidence points to Father Aguirre. Mike and his ex-wife law partner, Rosie, jump in to take the priest's case, but what started out as difficult soon appears impossible as forensics, witnesses, and secrets from Father Aguirre's past all incriminate their client. Soon, their wits are the only things keeping the priest from a life sentence or worse, and wits simply may not be enough-unless they can conjure up a miracle of their own.

The Confession (Mike Daley/Rosie Fernandez Legal Thriller)

New York Times best-selling author Sheldon Siegel returns with a harrowing new case for the San Francisco law firm of Daley and Fernandez. As husband and wife, Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez couldn’t make it work. But as partners in one of San Francisco’s most tenacious law firms, Daley and Fernandez make one hell of a team. Judgment Day finds the ex-spouses tackling their most difficult case yet. Called in at the last minute to try to stop the execution of Nathan Fineman, a former mob lawyer convicted of murdering three people in the back room of Chinatown’s notorious Golden Dragon Restaurant, Mike and Rosie must race the clock in a desperate attempt to prove their client’s innocence. With only ten days to go and a wealth of forensic evidence pointing overwhelmingly to Fineman’s guilt, their task seems impossible. Complicating matters, Mike must battle his own personal demons when the reputation of his dead father—a San Francisco cop who was one of the first officers at the scene the night of the murders—is called into question. And as the plot hurtles toward its stunning denouement, judgment day is fast approaching not only for Nate Fineman, but for Mike’s father and the law firm of Daley and Fernandez as well.

Judgment Day (Mike Daley/Rosie Fernandez Legal Thriller)

For Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez former spouses and current law partners the stakes have never been higher. In the seventh installment of this bestselling, critically acclaimed series, the duo learn that their sixteen-year-old daughter's boyfriend has been arrested on suspicion of murdering his father, a Superior Court judge. Bobby Fairchild, however, claims to have found his father's body upon returning home from a date with Grace. The police, who found Bobby at the scene of the crime holding the murder weapon, contend that his parents acrimonious divorce sent the boy over the edge. With their daughter as Bobby's only alibi, Mike and Rosie take the case and uncover a sex scandal that takes them down San Francisco's darkest alleys and into the homes of the city's most prominent citizens.

Perfect Alibi (Mike Daley/Rosie Fernandez Legal Thriller)

You can pick your friends, they say, but you can't pick your family. And lately, Mike Daley's family has been keeping him very busy. An ex-priest, ex-public defender, and ex-corporate lawyer, Daley and his former wife, Rosie Fernandez, now run their own San Francisco criminal defense firm. Most of their cases are fairly small-time, which is why it would be surprising that the person accused of murdering movie director Richard (Big Dick) MacArthur is calling them-except that the accused is Rosie's own niece, Angelina. That case is bad enough, but the family problems don't end there: Rosie's brother, Tony, may be on the wrong end of a strong-arm graft proposal; the son of one of the firm's lawyers has just been busted on a drug charge; Mike is having a clandestine affair with a woman judge . . . and Rosie herself has a dark secret that may make all of it seem irrelevant.

Criminal Intent (Mike Daley/Rosie Fernandez Legal Thriller)

Meet Mike Daley. Ex-priest. Ex-public defender. And as of yesterday, ex-partner in one of San Francisco’s most prominent law firms. Today he’s out on his own, setting up practice on the wrong side of town. Then his best friend and former colleague is charged with a brutal double murder, and Daley is instantly catapulted into a high-profile investigation involving the prestigious law firm that just booted him. As he prepares his case, Daley uncovers the firm’s dirtiest secrets. It doesn’t take long for him to discover that in this trial, ambition, friendship, greed, and long-standing grudges will play just as important a role as truth and justice.Brilliantly paced, crackling with energy and suspense, Special Circumstances reminds us why we love to hate lawyers, but can’t get enough of courtroom drama when it’s done this well.

Special Circumstances (Mike Daley/Rosie Fernandez Legal Thriller)

Special Circumstances introduced an exciting new voice in legal fiction — a talent so original, it drew comparisons with the very top tier of courtroom thriller writers. Now Sheldon Siegel delivers a new challenge for defense attorney Mike Daley — ex-priest, ex-husband, ex—public defender — and it’s a high-profile zinger: a case he doesn’t think he can win for a client he can’t stand. It starts with a phone call Mike Daley never expected to get, from District Attorney Prentice Marshall Gates III, San Francisco’s chief law enforcement officer and front-runner candidate for California attorney general. Friends they’re not; Skipper Gates had led the charge to get Mike fired from his job as a partner in a prestigious law firm. But Gates needs Daley now — and needs him badly. He’s just been arrested. It seems that a couple of hours earlier he woke up in an armchair in his hotel room and found the dead body of a young male prostitute in the bed. The details that continue to emerge from the crime scene are tabloid heaven. The SFPD is certain Gates did it. The prosecutors are already talking the death penalty, and there’s nothing in the mounting evidence, and certainly not in Gates’s unpersuasive denials, to convince Daley and his partner (and ex-wife) Rosie of his innocence. But even if he’s lying, it’s their job to defend him, and that means finding out what really happened. Sure enough, the deeper they dig, the seamier their findings. An array of influential power brokers is all too ready to cover questionable activities that may — or may not — connect with the victim. There’s a campaign manager with his own dirty secrets, a shady Internet entrepreneur who trades flesh for cash, a prominent businessman who uses muscle to keep his enterprise prospering. Mike and Rosie chase down trails that take them from the lowest depths of the Mission District, where drugs and bodies are always for sale, to the gated mansions of Pacific Heights, all the while contending with a trial that gets under way even as they are frantically trying to piece together what is really at stake in the case against Gates. Its riveting blend of inside knowledge, powerful suspense, courtroom intrigue, and ironic humor makes Incriminating Evidence an edge-of-the-seat novel that will hold readers from the very first page to its startling denouement.

Incriminating Evidence (Mike Daley/Rosie Fernandez Legal Thriller)

FELONY MURDER RULE is the eighth book in the legal thriller series featuring Mike Daley &amp; Rosie Fernandez. “I was just sitting in the car.” In the eighth installment of New York Times bestselling author Sheldon Siegel’s iconic San Francisco series, Mike Daley and ex-wife Rosie Fernandez face new challenges and stare down old demons as they return to work at the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office where they had started their careers and their relationship twenty years earlier. Mike and Rosie are now the co-heads of the Felony Division, where they spend more time running the office and supervising younger attorneys than trying cases. That changes quickly when Mike is visited by Melinda Nguyen, whose son, Thomas, a high school senior, is about to go on trial for murder. Thomas has been arrested under California’s archaic “felony murder rule,” which says you can be can be convicted of first degree murder if you’re present when someone is killed during the course of a felony, even if you don’t pull the trigger. The charge against Thomas shows the absurd limits of this legal doctrine. He was sitting outside in the car when a friend entered a liquor store in San Francisco’s teeming Tenderloin District and allegedly flashed a gun. The shopkeeper pulled out an AR-15 and calmly filled the alleged robber’s chest with bullets. Thomas is charged with murder even though he never entered the store. Thomas fires his original lawyer on the eve of trial after she recommends acceptance of a plea bargain. With nowhere else to turn, his mother petitions for help from the Public Defender’s Office, and Mike agrees to handle the trial scheduled to start four days later. As the evidence mounts against Thomas, it tests Mike and Rosie’s legal skills and relationship. Their stress is compounded by the fact that Thomas and his mother may have a connection to Mike’s older brother, Tommy, who died in Vietnam forty years earlier. Aided by Mike’s brother, Pete, a private investigator, and Rosie’s niece, Rolanda, a top-notch young attorney at the P.D.’s Office, Mike and Rosie face their most compelling challenge yet as they race to represent their client and try to find closure for old wounds. An intricate plot, immensely likeable characters, powerful suspense, and a touch of humor are Sheldon Siegel’s hallmarks. In Felony Murder Rule, readers will discover once again why reviewers have called Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez two of the most compelling and beloved characters in contemporary crime fiction.

Felony Murder Rule (Mike Daley/Rosie Fernandez Legal Thriller)

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