Conduct in Question - Mary E. Martin

                Conduct in Question is a legal mystery thriller involving money laundering, a missing will and greedy relatives. Added to that is a sadistic serial killer nicknamed “The Florist” because he/she carves intricate flower designs on his/her victims.

                Harry is an estate lawyer whose elderly client, Marjorie, has passed just as she’s called him to her house so she can change her will. Harry’s a bit suspicious but is distracted when money problems plague him and his law firm after his partner dies. Conveniently, a wealthy man wants to hire Harry and give him a huge retainer that makes it all seem a little too good to be true. Scattered throughout the book are bits and pieces from The Florist’s point of view and by the end of the book, everything is tied together.

                Conduct in Question is the first book in the Osgoode Trilogy and I really enjoyed it. I don’t usually like legal thrillers as I find them often to be rather dry and filled with too much legalese. The author of this book, however, keeps the story flowing at a good pace with lots of entertaining mystery to keep my interest. I have to admit that I was about a quarter of the way through the book before I was completely hooked but after that I thoroughly loved the story and the characters were brilliantly written. Harry in particular was superbly multidimensional. He had his weaknesses and a lack of confidence but by the end he showed just how strong he could be. Even though he’s a lawyer, he’s very likeable and without the arrogance often exhibited by lawyers in books. It was easy to figure out who The Florist was and it was interesting to see this person as both a sadistic killer and someone who appeared to live normally in society. My only qualm with the book was that sometimes a paragraph would involve one character and without any kind of segue, the next paragraph moved on to a different character.

                I read this in a digital format and it worked well on my ereader. The editing was well done as well. The cover, for me, didn’t represent the story or draw my interest a whole lot.

                I look forward to reading the next book in the trilogy.