I enjoy a good legal thriller but too many of them get ruined for me by unrealistic characters or completely implausible plots…cough,cough, John Grisham, cough, cough…so I tend to be very picky about reading one by an author unfamiliar to me. However, with an intriguing plot and lawyer characters who actually resemble people who spent some time in a real law school, Courting Disaster is a very fun read.

Carling Dent, the heroine, has a small law firm with two of her friends and the story opens with her trying to keep going in her practice after suffering a horrific injury. The year before, she got shot in the head while in an interview room with a criminal defense client. The client was killed, and Carling has no memory of what occurred. She has otherwise recovered from her injuries and returned to practicing law, though her behavior sometimes worries her partners. We learn early on that Carling was once quite picky about who she took on as clients and that she now has become almost reckless in taking on clients she once would have rejected. We also learn that at the time of the shooting, Carling was dating prosecutor Jared Morgan, but that the relationship fell apart not long afterward.

Carling has reached an odd stasis in her life. She could almost indefinitely spend her off hours holing up in her apartment and irritating her partners by representing scum of the earth even she doesn’t believe in, however, a company that keeps her on retainer sends her a client that will shake things up. And on top of that, Carling ends up in a traffic accident that seems to trigger the return of pieces of her memory. And as her memory comes back by fits and starts, so do those who would like to see it all stay buried.

Not too surprisingly, as Carling finds herself in danger and her life is thrown into turmoil, Jared reappears. In this case, he comes back because Carling, confused after her accident and caught somehow between her past and present, forgets they have broken up and calls him at work. Carling does not know whether she can trust her ex-boyfriend, but she certainly still feels attracted to the man.

One thing that really makes this book are the lawyers. Carling, Jared and their friends aren’t superheroes and the author doesn’t put them on a pedestal. In fact, Carling has gone down a fairly self-destructive path since her shooting and in that, she feels truly real. I’ve practiced law for several years and some of the best lawyers I know, particularly in the criminal and domestic fields, are the profane saints of our world. Many are deeply flawed, but many still try to do right – and Carling fits this mold even when faced with puzzle pieces that she cannot put together right away.

Jared is a bit more of a standard issue Knight in Shining Armor, but he is still likable. In addition, he and Carling most definitely have chemistry. It’s not always obvious whether they will be able to like each other, but lusting after each other and perhaps even loving one another both seem totally believable, even in the early stages of the story. Due to Carling’s memory loss and the corresponding change to her personality, her character is something of a moving target and the reader does not always know in which direction she will develop. This made for interesting reading and a sometimes less than predictable relationship trajectory.

Though Carling narrates her story in the first person, I would have liked to delve a little deeper into her inner world because her recovering mind added a real layer of mystery to the story. My other quibble is that there are a few places where the suspense plot drags a bit. Parts of the mystery’s solution (though not all) will be obvious to most readers fairly early on and because of this, it can get a little dull waiting for the characters’ discernment to catch up with that of the reader. However, Courting Disaster is still a very entertaining read and I loved getting to read a legal thriller that blended real excitement with lawyers who don’t live like the rich and famous.