Trial By Jury

Seattle's art world looks glamorous from the outside — all champagne, flattery, and carefully lit canvases. But when a young artist turns up dead at a fundraiser gala and the case is quietly ruled a suicide, attorney Daniel Raine suspects the truth has been framed just as deliberately as anything hanging on the gallery walls. Struggling to keep his solo practice afloat, Raine takes on what looks like a straightforward civil lawsuit and finds himself pulling at threads that the city's wealthy elite would very much prefer stayed untouched. The stakes are personal, the milieu is treacherous, and the question of what really happened refuses to stay buried.

Stephen Penner writes legal fiction with the confidence of someone who understands how courtrooms actually work — and how rarely they deliver clean justice. The Rain City series earns its procedural credibility without drowning readers in jargon, and Trial By Jury moves with a rhythm that makes 248 pages feel propulsive rather than padded. Penner has a gift for layering motive and atmosphere simultaneously, so the Seattle setting becomes genuinely atmospheric rather than decorative backdrop. Readers who appreciate sharp, grounded legal drama will find this second installment more assured than the first.