Daddy's Girl

Daddy's Girl

Natalie Greco loves being a law professor, even though she can't keep her students from cruising sex.com during class and secretly feels like Faculty Comic Relief. She loves her family, too, but as a bookworm, doesn't quite fit into the cult of Greco football, headed by her father, the team captain. The one person she feels most connected to is her colleague, Angus Holt, a guy with a brilliant mind, a great sense of humor, a gorgeous facade, and a penchant for helping those less fortunate. When he talks Nat into teaching a class at a local prison, her comfortably imperfect world turns upside down. A violent prison riot breaks out during the class, and in the chaos, Nat rushes to help a grievously injured prison guard. Before he dies, he asks her to deliver a cryptic message with his last words: "Tell my wife it's under the floor." The dying declaration plunges Nat into a nightmare. Suddenly, the girl who has always followed the letter of the law finds herself suspected of a brutal murder and encounters threats to her life around every curve. Now not only are the cops after her, but ruthless killers are desperate to keep her from exposing their secret. In the meantime, she gets dangerously close to Angus, whose warmth, strength, and ponytail shake her dedication to her safe boyfriend. With her love life in jeopardy, her career in the balance, and her life on the line, Nat must rely on her resources, her intelligence, and her courage. Forced into hiding to stay alive, she sets out to save herself by deciphering the puzzle behind the dead guard's last words . . . and learns the secret to the greatest puzzle of all—herself. Filled with the ingenious twists, pulse-pounding narrative drive, and dynamic, flesh-and-blood characters that are the hallmarks of her bestsellers, Daddy's Girl is another wild, entertaining ride about love, family, and justice from the addictively readable Lisa Scottoline. Natalie "Nat" Greco's law students just aren't that interested in the history of justice, and she can't seem to find a way to reach them. Then a new teaching opportunity develops that would take her out of the University of Pennsylvania and into a local prison classroom. She opts for the dramatic change of scenery and soon finds herself in the middle of a prison melee, attempting to save the life of an injured prisoner, who makes a dying declaration intended for his wife. In attempting to deliver the bewildering message, Nat nearly gets herself killed and winds up being framed for murder. Ever concerned with justice, Nat goes on the lam as she tries to uncover the mystery of the prisoner's final words. Scottoline mixes stand-alones and her Rosato and Associates series in fairly even proportions, so series fans have learned to expect the occasional interruption. This one finds the author in good form, combining suspense- and character-building effectively. Like her heroine, Scottoline has recently begun to teach at Penn and is also embarking on another new project, a show for Court TV called Murder by the Book , featuring best-selling mystery writers presenting and discussing dramatizations of real-life crimes. She's already immensely popular, but expect the bump in exposure to bump up demand for her latest. Mary Frances Wilkens Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Lisa Scottoline is a New York Times bestselling author and serves as president of the Mystery Writers of America. She has won the Edgar Award, as well as many other writing awards. She also writes a Sunday humor column for the Philadelphia Inquirer , titled "Chick Wit," with her daughter, Francesca Serritella. There are thirty million copies of Lisa's books in print, and she has been published in thirty-two countries. She lives in Pennsylvania with an array of disobedient but adorable pets. Daddy's Girl By Lisa Scottoline HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. Copyright ©2007 Lisa Scottoline All right reserved. ISBN: 9780060833145 Chapter One Nat Greco felt like an A cup in a double-D bra. She couldn't understand why her tiny class was held in such a huge lecture hall, unless it was a cruel joke of the registrar's. The sun burned through the windows like a failure spotlight, illuminating two hundred empty seats. This class filled only nine of them, and last week the flu and job interviews had left Nat with one very uncomfortable male student. The History of Justice wasn't only a bad course. It was a bad date. "Justice and the law," she pressed on, "are themes that run through William Shakespeare's plays, because they were central to his life. When he was growing up, his father, John, held a number of legal positions, serving as a chamberlain, bailiff, and chief alderman." As she spoke, the law students typed on their black laptops, but she suspected they were checking their email, instant-messaging their friends, or cruising the Internet. The classrooms at Penn Law were wireless, but not all technology was pro