Done Gone Wrong by Cathy Pickens

c Waterloo Public Library 2008

Done Gone Wrong picks up the story of Avery Andrews, a young lawyer who has moved to Charleston to help a friend with a huge lawsuit against the makers of a controversial drug. Jake Baker, her friend, is in a real fix; his partner was to lead the case, but has died and there isn't much time to finish preparation.

At the same time, Avery got a phone call from an old boyfriend's younger brother, who is now a resident at a local hospital. He says he needs to talk to her and they set up a dinner date; however, Mark is a no-show, leaving her to sit at the restaurant and wonder what has happened. She had hoped to ask him about the drug, but is also concerned about why it seemed so urgent for them to meet.

The next day she is horrified to learn that Mark was involved in a fatal car accident--and his family needs her to go downtown and identify the body. The police officer who escorts her to the station, Cas Kirkland, also takes her to the scene of the crime: it turns out that Mark did not die due to injuries from the accident. He was murdered.

As Avery gets drawn into the research for the lawsuit, she also investigates Mark's murder; she meets his girlfriend, who gives her Mark's journal. He had mailed it to himself, which seemed to signal that it contained important information. In the meantime, Mark's apartment house was torched by an arsonist--which only makes Avery more determined to figure out Mark's abbreviations in his journal.

Done Gone Wrong was a pretty good read; I think that I enjoyed it more than the first book, because it included more court scenes, had something more of a mystery to unravel, and had a lot of interesting characters. You can find it in the mystery section of the WPL.