ROCKIN' AROUND THE CHICKADEE

A murder with a double helping of likely suspects brightens the Christmas holidays for Meg Langslow and the good people of Caerphilly, Virginia.

What do you think of when you think of Christmas? Probably not the same thing as Meg’s nephew, true-crime podcaster Kevin, who’s worked with his partner, Casey, and Meg’s grandmother, Cordelia Mason, to organize the Presumed Innocent conference, which aims to celebrate the hardworking folks who toil to win reversals or new trials for those falsely convicted of murder. The event brings together lawyers like Meg’s cousin Festus Hollingsworth, who’s worked many such cases himself; potential clients like Ginny Maynard and Janet Pollard, both of whom are determined to help a friend, and Madelaine Taylor and her aunt Ellen Mays, who are bent on setting a relative free; and alumni exonerees Ezekiel Blaine, whose conviction wasn’t overturned till after he’d served nearly 50 years, and Amber Smith, who’s been out on bail since her prosecutors failed to disclose relevant evidence to her defense attorney. Unfortunately, it also attracts nut cases like Godfrey Norton, who won’t rest till everyone in attendance shares his belief that wrongful convictions are rare. No points for predicting that Godfrey will be killed, since pretty much everyone on the scene has a good motive for killing him, whether out of fear that he’ll tarnish their reputations or tank their cases or just out of plain annoyance with his hectoring manner. Andrews keeps everything moving along smartly till the unsurprising ending, though the relative dearth of humor this time around shows what happens when you kill off the snarkiest character early on.

Nothing says Christmas like innocence, except of course for guilt.