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Justice is more than “fact”
Bad Day for Justice follows two veteran law partners who are pulled back into a forty-year-old murder case linked to a new blackmail scheme involving a lost jewel called the Tsarina’s Spider. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
First, we wanted to illustrate how productive and energetic older people can be if they remain healthy and mentally active. Second, Catherine the Great’s love of jewelry as a means of portraying power is a fascinating story that we wanted to use in at least a small way.
What does that long delay allow you to explore emotionally that a more immediate crime story wouldn’t?
The idea that justice doesn’t always happen right away, sometimes never. But cold cases that are solved can be very satisfying.
How did you approach writing characters like Dawson, Nowak, and Ortez, whose lives are shaped by tragedy and questionable choices?
We all make questionable choices – theirs simply had larger, more visible consequences than those most of us make. Also, we lived through the WPPSS catastrophe, so that seemed like a good place to start. Mistakes were made based on what appeared to be solid reasoning, so that reinforced our theme of questionable choices.
The book keeps asking, “Is justice delayed still justice?” Do you believe the story answers that question?
Justice is more than “fact” – it is also how those involved “feel” about results. So, there is no absolute answer to that question. For instance, someone spends thirty years in prison for a crime they didn’t commit and new evidence emerges to exonerate them. Does that “feel” like justice?
Author Links: Charlotte Stuart GoodReads | Don Stuart GoodReads | X | Facebook | Charlotte Stuart Website | Don Stuart Website
One family loses a father to murder; the other sees theirs accused. When the victim’s son-in-law hijacks a Navy jet and vanishes over the Canadian wilderness, he leaves a mystery that refuses to fade.
Decades later, a defamation case and blackmail pull veteran law partners Duncan Carmichael and Sydney Warren back into the lingering mysteries surrounding the original murder. They struggle to help their former clients and strive to find justice for both families.
But is justice delayed still justice?
Bad Day for Justice (Warren & Carmichael Legal Thrillers – Book 2)
Bad Day for Justice follows two Seattle lawyers, Sydney Warren and Duncan Carmichael, as they get pulled into the fallout from a brutal year in 1983. A Navy pilot vanishes in a stolen EA-6B Prowler, a huge public power project implodes, and a financial advisor named Harold Dawson dies under very suspicious circumstances. Decades later, the grown children of the supposed killer and the victim, along with the Ortez family from the missing-jet scandal, stumble into a fresh blackmail scheme tied to a lost jewel called the Tsarina’s Spider, and everyone has to decide what “justice” looks like when the truth arrives forty years late.
I really enjoyed how the authors handle the nuts-and-bolts stuff. The legal and military pieces feel grounded, yet the story still moves. The opening sequence with the stolen Prowler has real punch, and the later courtroom work around the Dawson death goes down smooth, even when the arguments get technical. The book hops between Navy bases, Seattle law offices, British Columbia ferries, and a Cascade trailhead, and each place feels authentic. I liked spending time with older versions of Sydney and Duncan. They are competent, stubborn, a little tired, and still fully in the fight. The large cast can feel crowded at first, yet by the time Allison rides that little Aquabus with a fake jewel in her lap, I had a decent handle on who mattered and why.
The core question of justice delayed sits over everything, and the forty-year gap makes that question sting. The children of Dawson and Nowak carry scars from choices they never made, and their scenes together have a quiet ache that lingers. I liked the way the story refuses a clean hero-villain split. Dawson’s suicide, Nowak’s ruined life, Danny Ortez’s desperate choices in the past and his weary acceptance in the present, all of that pushes the book into interesting moral gray. The backstory around the WPPSS bond debacle and the art-heist angle with the Tsarina’s Spider feels like a lot of moving parts, and once or twice, I had to pause and mentally sort out who owed what to whom. Still, the emotional throughline kept pulling me back.
By the end, the big deck gathering at the Carmichaels’ house gave me that mix of relief and unease that I like in a legal thriller. The good guys get some wins, old lies get aired out, reputations get patched, yet there is no magic fix for lost decades or wrecked careers. It feels honest. I would recommend Bad Day for Justice to readers who enjoy character-driven legal thrillers, people interested in the Pacific Northwest and real-world financial messes, and anyone who likes seeing older protagonists treated as full-on leads instead of background mentors. If you want a smart, steady, slightly twisty story about family, accountability, and what “justice” costs once the dust finally settles, this one is worth your time.
Pages: 397 | ASIN : B0GGL6WRDT
Raven’s Legacy (A Jonah St. Clair Mystery)
Raven’s Legacy is an atmospheric mystery set in the remote Alaskan village of Koloshan in 1980. At the center is Jonah St. Clair, a war veteran and former LAPD officer turned village cop, who’s suddenly tasked with investigating the shocking theft of sacred Tlingit artifacts from the local Native Arts Center. The heart of the mystery is the missing Raven House screen—a symbol of cultural pride and community history—setting off a tense clash between tradition, greed, and the ghosts of the past. As Jonah digs deeper, he uncovers more than just clues; he finds tangled loyalties, unresolved grief, and a reckoning with cultural identity that makes this story far more than your average whodunit.
The opening prologue, where a young Jonah first lays eyes on the Raven House screen, is quietly haunting. That scene stayed with me, not because of flashy writing but because of the reverence and weight Stuart gives to culture and memory. There’s this moment where elders stand around naming each missing artifact in Tlingit—“Káa yooka.όot’ x’όow,” “Naaxein,”—like they’re reading names off a memorial. It’s a grief not just for stolen objects, but for a fading culture being ripped away in broad daylight.
Stuart’s writing is sharp but not showy. It flows easy, like a local telling a story over coffee—personal, thoughtful, no wasted words. I loved how she grounded everything in real place and texture. Koloshan doesn’t feel like a backdrop—it’s a character. The muddy roads, the rusting buildings, the church steeples clashing with old totems. It all feels lived-in and complicated. Stuart also gets small-town politics and family dynamics just right—the way gossip travels faster than police radios, and how history never stays buried. Especially when we get to the elder characters like Harold and Ray, each with their own ideas about what the artifacts “should” mean. It’s not just mystery—it’s a debate about identity, and who gets to decide what legacy survives.
The pacing drags a bit midway through Jonah’s hunt for leads, especially during the logistics-heavy stretch in Juneau. But even then, there’s always an emotional undercurrent. She writes with empathy. There’s tension, yeah, but also a real sense of stakes for these quiet, ordinary people caught in something bigger than them. Jonah himself is a standout. He’s tough, sure, but there’s a vulnerability there—he feels things deeply, and that gives the story its soul.
Raven’s Legacy is a thoughtful, rich, and emotional mystery with a lot of heart. If you’re looking for a mystery with real depth, layered characters, and a powerful sense of place, you’ll get a lot out of this one. I’d especially recommend it to fans of Dana Stabenow or those who love stories that blend culture, community, and quiet suspense.
Pages: 305 | ASIN : B0F3M8VPPP
