A police detective is found murdered. He'd been beaten, stabbed, mutilated and hung by chains from a fountain in the town square. Joe McNaughton had been having an affair with a 19 year old stripper who was fulfilling all his perverted sexual fantasies. He talked about it in vivid detail to all his police buddies. His wife gets a phone call from another policeman's wife revealing what was going on. She was so upset that she confronted Joe and told him to call it off. They had been happily married for 15 years and she wanted to try and save the marriage. At first he refuses so she goes to confront the girl, Keri Dalcanton. They fight and she leaves. She says that she confronts Joe again and threatens to divorce him and take all his inherited money so he agrees. The last person to see him alive is Keri when he went to break up with her. The police go to her apartment and find her leather dominatrix costume covered in blood and finds her fingerprints on the chains used to chain him to the fountain. So she is accused of murder and her Defense Attorney is good guy Ben Kincaid and his partner, Christina McCall. She was his legal assistant but she's been going to law school and graduates at the beginning of this book.

Who killed Joe McNaughton? Can Ben save his client and find the real murderer? And things get hairy when he is accused of McNaughton's murder when the murder weapon was found in his office.

Although I really liked Ben Kincaid and his partner and co-workers and Bernhardt's writing was great and the legal maneuvers were exciting...I can't recommend this book. Graphic sex (perverted sex, too) was heavy throughout the novel. At one point, Ben Kincaid is facing a judge and he thinks the judge is getting a thrill at listening to the kinky details of the sexual affair. I stopped and said to myself, "Yeah, and so is this author!" I have a real problem with gratuitous, constant, perversion. So this book was a real half/half to me. Like I said, I liked the good guys, the relationships between them, the legal maneuvers, the twists. But I hated the really yucky parts! So this one will have to go in the trash too

If somone reads this book, let me tell you that there is only one unpardonable sin. The work of the Holy Spirit is to prepare the heart and present the salvation message of Jesus Christ to those hearts. Unfortunately, many ignore the call to salvation through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The only way to salvation. When they reject the work of the Holy Spirit to show them the way, they are hardening their heart. So the only unpardonable sin is to reject the message of the Holy Spirit that leads to salvation through Jesus Christ. THE ONLY SIN THAT CAN KEEP YOU OUT OF HEAVEN is rejection of Jesus Christ as the way to salvation...rejecting his free offer of forgiveness and salvation. There is one character in this book who thinks he has committed sins that God cannot forgive and it drives him crazy. In a way, this is stone cold PRIDE to think YOU can commit a sin that GOD cannot forgive. To think that Jesus Christ somehow could not save you?!? That you are unique in all the world's history and someone that Jesus' blood cannot save? I don't think so. Jesus died for us. Forgiveness and salvation is freely offered. It's why Jesus died for us. You can be forgiven by God and saved to spend eternity with God in heaven no matter what sins you have committed. It only requires a repentant heart and the belief and trust that He has forgiven you and you are now His Child no matter what your past was. But people do go to hell. Why? Because they refuse to take the free gift of salvation. They refuse to believe that Jesus paid the price for us. They harden their own hearts and make the conscious choice to reject the offer of redemption. That is the only unpardonable sin...rejecting Jesus Christ. And it can cause you to spend eternity in hell. You hold your eternity in your hand. You can choose to submit to God, repent and accept His wonderful gift. Or you can reject him and harden your heart and end up in hell. God loves you and wants you and has done everything to offer you the Way. Please accept him. He forgives even if no one else does. All it needs is a repentant heart. ( )