The Corpse in the Road

Part of a series of nine mystery novels featuring San Mateo attorney Frank May, The Corpse in the Road finds Frank reporting to his law practice, one of primarily wills and trusts and a smattering of small business dealings, and learning that one of his clients, a man seeking help in claiming an inheritance, killed a man. Frank has always avoided criminal law and wants to keep it that way, but his client insists.
His client claims to have accidentally hit a man with his car on a lonely stretch of road in a remote area. In a panic, he dumped the unidentified man's body in a ravine off the side of the road. Now, a year later, the client claims he's being blackmailed and needs Frank to be his intermediary. Frank reluctantly agrees, and the initial drop of money sucks him into a web of circumstances that he must dissect when he realizes his client has failed to tell him the truth.

With his interweaving of the legal world, blackmail, and his sublime rendering of digging into a client's dirt, Lawrence M. Friedman delivers an engrossing mystery, laced with humor and rolled into a stellar debut novel.