Until the Bough Breaks

New York Times bestselling author Christine McGuire, a real-life criminal prosecutor, packs her legal thrillers with authentic details and "human characters who...leap right off the pages" (The Pilot, Southern Pines, NC).
Now, in Until The Bough Breaks, McGuire's tenacious heroine, Assistant D.A. Kathryn Mackay, confronts a scorching controversy in the courtroom -- and a shattering revelation in her private life.

The Fourth of July is winding down, but in Santa Rita County the fireworks have just begun. A house in the well-to-do Mission Heights district has gone up in flames. Inside are the charred remains of Lawrence Lancaster, with a .22 caliber slug in his brain -- courtesy of his wife. Kathryn's convinced it's premeditated murder, but she's pitted against a high-profile, media-savvy attorney who's vowing to turn the trial into a referendum on Battered Women's Syndrome.

Kathryn's greatest challenge will be focusing on the defendant's love life...and not on her own. Her colleague and lover, David Granz, has also been accused of a crime -- the brutal rape of a former girlfriend -- and the evidence seems airtight. With her personal and professional worlds on a collision course, Kathryn races to uncover the truth -- and becomes the next target in a spiral of rage, recrimination, and explosive violence.

Christine McGuire prosecutes murder cases in a California district attorney's office. She has taught at the academy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Quantico, Virginia. Her first book, Perfect Victim, a nonfiction account of a sexual enslavement case, was a #1 New York Times bestseller. Her acclaimed Kathryn Mackay series includes Until Proven Guilty, Until Justice Is Done, Until Death Do Us Part, and Until the Bough Breaks. She is currently at work on her fifth Mackay thriller, to be published by Pocket Books.