The Mental Case — John Ellsworth

The Mental Case is a novel about law firm money and a law firm death. And about a missing child and a parent's frantic search. Join Thaddeus Murfee, back in Chicago and around the world, in his strangest case yet -- a man whose plastic character changes, comes and goes, like the proverbial will-o-the-wisp. Ansel Largent has been a founder and managing partner of a large Chicago law firm for two decades. He is respected. Ferocious in the courtroom but a winner with the jury. Happy at home with wife Libby, a stroke victim. Happy at the office with Melinda, a married woman with a special interest in him. Ansel has fathered two sons and loves them both dearly. Then Ansel's law firm is horrified by two shocking crimes: the trust account has been embezzled. $2 hundred million has vanished. And full-partner Suzanne Fairmont has been found dead in her office. Whether her death is a homicide or suicide is immediately disputed. And an even greater shock: Ansel suspects his son David of the embezzlement and wonders if there might also be a connection to Suzanne's sudden death. Thaddeus meets Ansel inside a Mexico jail where both are lodged for crimes committed at the border. Will Thaddeus agree to defend Ansel? Does it matter that Ansel has a $50,000 retainer taped to his body? They go to trial. Thaddeus is struck speechless at the outcome of his trickiest murder trial yet. He is left with no sense of what comes next and where his client might expect to spend the rest of his life -- and with whom. The conclusion is shocking. The author respectfully asks that you reveal the ending to no one, so all may read and enjoy for themselves.