Barely days after recruitment consultant Karen Rutherford's right hand man suddenly quits, she is horrified to discover the theft of her database and an underhand campaign to entice her clients away and destroy her business. Anger turns to disbelief when immediate legal redress fails. Her livelihood threatened to the core, she finds herself locked into a courtroom battle escalating into bitter conflict when a fraught episode from her private life pours oil on already troubled waters. Not far away, legal executive Paul Craven can hardly believe his luck and his headhunter's skills when he lands his dream job. Or so he thought. As the cold reality of the new workplace sinks in, it slowly dawns on him that his deepest personal secret - his affliction with Asperger's Syndrome - may be impossible to keep to himself any longer. Amid the turmoil, being drawn into someone else's legal dispute was all he needed. Craven Conflict. Unwelcome choices. Harsh decisions. Barely lesser evils.

I am a solicitor living and working in England.

My first novel, legal suspense/thriller Hatred Ridicule and Contempt, was published in November 2011 and features a libel action told from the newspaper defendant's perspective, with a subplot reflecting some shocking law firm internal politics.

I have moved to actual politics in my second novel Infernal Coalition, a legal/political suspense published in September 2012, where an underhand plan to defraud a solicitors' firm runs in parallel with a law professor's decision to strike back at the party machine that was evidently once keen to encourage her interest in becoming a Parliamentary candidate, only to exclude her in favour of one of their own kind.