THE JURY

The vigilantes of the Sisterhood take the law into their own hands once more, after devoting due consideration to exactly which law to break.

Stung by her breakup with prosecutor-turned-private-eye Jack Emery (Vendetta, not reviewed), Virginia attorney Nikki Quinn allows her adoptive mother, Myra Rutledge, and Myra’s solicitous lover, former MI6 agent Charles Martin, who’s “on first-name terms with the Queen,” to whisk her off to a recuperative tropical isle. While she’s lying in the sun without a cell phone or Web access, Allison Banks, the demure associate she hired, is running her firm into the ground. Against the advice of Nikki’s loyal office manager, Madeline Barrows, Allison’s represented the dreadful Barringtons, con-artist neighbors whose starving horses Myra had rescued from certain death, and won them $10 million in damages from Myra. Fired and bloodied by Nikki, Allison vows revenge, but she vanishes as completely as Nikki’s plan to take arms against the Barringtons. Instead, like last-minute shoppers trying to cash in a coupon before the store closes, the Sisterhood eventually goes after the president’s best friend, wife-beating national security advisor Karl Woodley. The weasel is ringed round by secrecy and security, but will that stop the Sisterhood? Humph.

Perennially bestselling Michaels (Family Blessings, 2004, etc.) spins a shapeless web of clichés without a trace of suspense or conviction. Even Nikki’s sworn enemy Jack returns to her arms in time to taste some sweet revenge of his own.