Burning Justice
Kirkus Reviews ⭐️ BEST INDIE BOOKS OF 2020 ⭐️Innocent Prisoners Project Book 6
Dani Trumball is back! The newest in Marti Green’s award-winning books about the wrongly accused features Dani Trumball in another suspenseful courtroom drama – and her fiercest fight yet.
“Burning Justice is an emotionally riveting story of an attorney’s heroic struggle to save the life of a woman on death row convicted of a horrific crime on outdated expert evidence. Well-drawn characters, with twists that propel you to a riveting end.”
Innocent Prisoners Project Series
Everyone deserves justice, and Dani and the Help Innocent Prisoners Project will get it.
Praise for Unintended Consequences:
Marti Green’s standalone thriller: The Good Twin
Mallory Holcolm is an unfulfilled waitress and aspiring artist living in a Queens boardinghouse when she learns something astonishing about her past: she has an identical twin sister named Charly she never knew existed.
Charly is a Princeton graduate, a respected gallery owner, and an heiress married to her handsome college sweetheart, Ben. Charly got everything she ever wanted. Everything Mallory wanted, too. And now having it all might be easier than Mallory ever imagined. Because Ben has reasons of his own for wanting to help her.
It begins with his startling proposal. All Mallory has to do is say yes.
But as their devious plan falls into place, piece by piece, Mallory learns more about her sister and herself than she ever meant to—a discovery that comes with an unexpected twist. A chilling deception is about to become a dangerous double cross. And it’s going to change the rules of Ben and Mallory’s game to the very end.
"A wonderfully clever plot, intriguing characters, and twists at every single turn—The Good Twin is better than good...it’s a great read!"
"Green keeps the surprises coming in this twisty standalone."
"They’re siblings, but their blood runs cold, turning what could have been a heartwarming reunion into a heart-stopping thriller."
More on the Innocent Prisoners Project Series
⭐️ Winner of the Florida Writers Association Royal Palm Award, Thriller/Suspense
⭐️ Winner of the Do It Write Literary Competition
Available Formats: eBook, Print, Audiobook (Mp3 & CD)
Paperback: 285 pages
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer (November 12, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1477818154
Genre: Legal Thriller
Unintended Consequences (Book 1)
Nineteen years ago, Indiana police found the body of a young girl, burned beyond recognition and buried in the woods. They arrested George Calhoun for murdering his daughter, and his wife testified against him at the trial. George maintains he didn’t do it. That the body isn’t his little Angelina. But that’s all he’s ever said—no other defense, no other explanation. The jury convicted him. Now his appeals have been exhausted, and his execution is just six weeks away.
Dani Trumball, an attorney for the Help Innocent Prisoners Project, wants to believe him. After all, there was no forensic evidence to prove that the body in the woods was George’s daughter. But if the girl isn’t Angelina, then who is it? And what happened to the Calhouns’ missing daughter? Despite the odds, the questions push Dani to take the case.
For nineteen years, George Calhoun has stayed silent. But he’s ready to talk, and if the story he tells Dani is true, it changes everything.
Revised edition: This edition of Unintended Consequences includes editorial revisions.
Excerpt
© 2012 Marti Green. All rights reserved. Excerpted from Unintended Consequences, Yankee Clipper Press. Used with permission.
Forty-Two Days
I didn’t kill my little girl. The body in the woods—that wasn’t my daughter. The words on the page kept ringing in Dani Trumball’s ears. I loved my little girl and only wanted to help her.
Most of the letters on her desk Dani went through quickly, spotting the scams easily enough and tossing them aside for a quick response from her secretary. “Dear (fill in the blank): We regret that the Help Innocent Prisoners Project is unable to assist you at this time.” Others rang true and might warrant some added sentences. “While we appreciate your circumstances, the many requests for our limited services mean we can only accept a few cases. We wish you the best of luck in finding someone else to help you.” Only a few, a very few, were taken on.
This letter—it stayed with her. I sure hope you can help me because they are going to kill me soon, and maybe I deserve to die, but it’s not because I killed my little girl. Six weeks until his execution. “Impossible,” she kept muttering to herself, shaking her head. She pushed her hair away from her face and wiped her forehead with a tissue. It was warm for early April, too early for the air-conditioning in the office to be turned on, and she felt limp from the heat. She unbuttoned an extra button on her blouse and then reread George Calhoun’s letter. I kept telling them she wasn’t my daughter, but they didn’t believe me. I don’t know why Sallie—that’s my wife—said she was. She must have gone crazy, from worry about Angelina. That’s our daughter’s name. We named her that because she was our little angel.
The Help Innocent Prisoners Project—HIPP—operated out of a converted warehouse on 14th Street in the East Village. It received letters from inmates throughout the country, and each attorney reviewed some of them. Dani had been going through a stack of folders, each containing an inmate’s plea for help, when she came across the letter from Calhoun. She’d already scribbled, “Sorry, no,” across the top, put it in her out box, and moved on to other letters. For the third time, she rummaged through her pile of replies and pulled his letter out. After staring at Calhoun’s words once more, she started to put it back yet again but wavered. Finally, she stood up and strode out of the office, glancing up at the framed embroidery over the door on her way out. It read, “Everyone on death row claims they are innocent. Once in a while they are.” Her mother had sewn it for her after she began working at HIPP. Over time, Dani had witnessed the truth of the saying. The difficulty was in figuring out which ones really were innocent. Sometimes, when she felt most overwhelmed, she wished for a magic ball—perhaps in the form of DNA evidence—that could provide the answer. Without it, the truth was often elusive.
Available Formats: eBook, Print, Audiobook (Mp3 & CD)
Print Length: 294 pages
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Publication Date: November 4, 2014
ASIN: B00K7MCE3W
Genre: Legal Thriller
Presumption of Guilt (Innocent Prisoners Project Book 2)
Twelve years ago, teenager Molly Singer was tried and convicted for murdering her parents. She was sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison, torn away from her newborn daughter, and forsaken by those closest to her. But now, a series of anonymous letters proclaim her innocence—and point a finger at a deadly conspiracy.
Attorney Dani Trumball specializes in defending the wrongfully imprisoned at the Help Innocent Prisoners Project. But taking Molly’s case means taking on a hard-hearted justice system that doesn’t like do-overs…and a merciless killer who will do anything to keep a secret history of dirty deals buried. Only the truth will set Molly free and reunite her broken family. And only Dani has any chance of finding it in a showdown that will push her legal talents—and her survival skills—to the very edge.
Available Formats: eBook, Print, Audiobook (Mp3 & CD)
Print Length: 271 pages
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer (July 21, 2015)
Publication Date: July 21, 2015
Genre: Legal Thriller
Price of Justice (Innocent Prisoners Project Book 3)
Seven years ago, Winston Melton was on top of the world: a privileged kid fresh off his first semester at Princeton. Life was perfect—until he was accused of the rape and murder of an ex-girlfriend. Years after his conviction, another death-row inmate has come forward with an eleventh-hour confession, casting Win’s conviction in a new light. But with the ink drying on his death sentence, time is running short.
Win’s grandmother, the family matriarch, has her eyes set on one of the Help Innocent Prisoners Project’s defense lawyers: Dani Trumball, and her reputation for results, no matter the cost. Dani, concerned she is being bought, initially refuses but eventually takes the case.
Soon, Dani can sense that something’s off, both with Win’s conviction and the new confession. But seven years after the incident, is there still a chance of uncovering the truth?
Available Formats: eBook, Print, Audiobook (Mp3 & CD)
Print Length: 270 pages
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Publication Date: May 10, 2016
ASIN: B016ZNRBY8
Genre: Legal Thriller
First Offense (Innocent Prisoners Project Book 4)
Twelve-year-old Frankie Bishop is a model kid: quiet and bright. So everyone, especially his family, is shocked when he’s arrested for drug possession—and horrified when he’s sentenced to juvenile detention at Eldridge Academy. His uncle, Bruce Kantor of the Help Innocent Prisoners Project, wants to help but knows he’s too close to the case.
His associate Dani Trumball has family worries of her own to deal with, but she knows Bruce wouldn’t ask for help without cause. Just as she and her team begin to investigate, the case gets even thornier: Frankie is missing, and evidence points to an Eldridge cover-up.
As the FBI launches a hunt for the boy, Dani knows something isn’t right. Why would a minor’s first offense earn such a harsh punishment? Unconvinced by the court documents, Dani is dogged in her pursuit of the truth that will save Frankie’s future—if he still has one.
Available Formats: eBook, Print, Audiobook (Mp3 & CD)
Print Length: 286 pages
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Publication Date: May 9, 2017
Language: English
ASIN: B01LY1C2AV
Genre: Legal Thriller
Justice Delayed (Innocent Prisoners Project Book 5)
The fifth legal thriller in the award-winning Help Innocent Prisoners Project series is Dani Trumball’s most personal case yet, as she races to stop an execution and identify the real killer.
The brutal murder of sixteen-year-old Kelly Braden sends shock waves through a community—and an intellectually disabled man to jail. The only witness to Kelly’s murder is the five-year-old cousin she was babysitting. The young girl names their neighbor, Jack Osgood, as the bat-wielding criminal. Two decades later, Osgood faces execution.
Defense Attorney Dani Trumball and her partner, investigator Tommy Noorland, are summoned to the Georgia prison where Osgood is on death row. With no friends or family of his own, there is no one left to believe Jack didn’t kill Kelly but Dani and her Help Innocent Prisoners Project. With a mentally disabled son of her own, defending Osgood could be her most heartrending case yet.
While fighting a system that blocks her attempts to overturn his conviction, Dani must race to identify the real killer before Osgood’s time runs out—and the murderer strikes again.
Book 6 of Innocent Prisoners Project Series
Available Formats: eBook, Print
Publication Date: April 2020
Language: English
Genre: Legal Thriller
Burning Justice (Innocent Prisoners Project Book 6)
The newest in Marti Green’s award-winning books about the wrongly accused features Dani Trumball in another suspenseful courtroom drama – and her fiercest fight yet.
Convicted of setting fire to her house and killing her three children, young Texas widow Becky Whitlaw is sentenced to death. Becky maintains her innocence—even though a part of her worries she may have indeed committed arson during a drunken blackout.
Twenty years later, attorney Dani Trumball works with the Help Innocent Prisoners Project, defending cases of the wrongfully convicted. Now living with her husband and two children in California, Dani takes Becky’s case, even though the evidence paints a grim picture.
California has been besieged by wildfires, and the raging fires strike dangerously close to home. Dani fights to gather new information that might save Becky’s life, while keeping her own family secure, but time is running out.
Getting justice in this case may test not only Dani’s legal talents but also the limits of her own heart.