The Safecracker (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798992907254)

No sooner does Patricia Egan, an idealistic young lawyer, embark on a promising legal career with a boutique southern law firm than the firm breaks up and she finds herself in a supporting role to an alcoholic senior partner representing a group of cities in a visionary alternative energy project. (It's 1980, and lines for gasoline snake around the block.) Instead of saving the country, the firm loses the client, and Patricia ends up defending a small-time safecracker and escape artist named Billy Angel, while trying to overcome the senior partner's failings and rescue the firm with the help of her associate, Jack Alexander. Patricia and Jack soon discover that some of their well-heeled clients, both former and present, are not only involved in a scheme to bilk the energy project but may also have instigated the murder of a city whistleblower--during Billy Angel's ill-fated burglary of a Taco Pal restaurant. When they become obstacles to the plot, Patricia, Jack, and Billy end up in the crosshairs of the conspirators, with deadly consequences.