Missing Witness.

• Author: Matturro, Claire Hamner
• Position: Book review

Missing Witness By Gordon Campbell

Attorney Gordon Campbell hits the bull's-eye the first time with his legal thriller, Missing Witness.

Campbell's debut novel is a classic courtroom drama reminiscent of Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent. But it is also a young lawyer's coming-of-age tale, with the inevitable exchange of innocence for experience.

Three generations of attorneys mark this story: Frank Menendez, the law firm's aged founder now on his death bed, is still the smartest of all; Dan Morgan, trained by Frank, is a kind, brilliant, flawed man; and Doug McKenzie, a year out of law school, is awed by Dan until Doug has to clean up Dan's mess with a life or death closing argument.

The story starts simple enough. On an Arizona ranch, a woman and her 12-year-old daughter enter a house, six shots are fired, and the two leave the house. Outside, the mother drops the gun into the dust as a ranch hand watches. Later, mother and daughter's fingerprints will both be found on the weapon. Inside the house, the husband and father of the two, respectively, lies dead. The mother is arrested. The dead man's father hires Dan and Doug to defend the woman everyone believes guilty. Why the father hires a famous defense attorney to defend the woman accused of shooting his only son is slowly revealed as the dying Frank fits that puzzle together.

As Dan and Doug defend the mother against first degree murder charges, complications arise. In a twist, Dan and Doug also agree to defend her daughter, who is tried as an adult for the same murder. Without question, either the mother or the child killed the dead man. Yet, Dan and his protege must get them both off. Campbell deals with the obvious conflict of interest directly, but in...