Judge Lara Sanderstone, young for the bench at thirty-eight, is a brilliant and brave woman whose judicial career suddenly takes second place to her hunt for the savage murderer of her young sister and brother-in-law. In the aftermath of the hideous crime, Lara is left with the victims' brutalized teenage son, Josh, on her hands and faced with the knowledge of the degradation that has consumed the sister she loved so much. Even more pressing, she herself is being stalked by a killer whose terrifying attacks leave no clue as to identity or motive.

There is no safe haven for Lara-not in the Orange County, California courtroom where an agonizing case of child abuse and assault is putting the law on trial and the legal system through the wringer; not in the condo where she is hiding with the troubled Josh, whom she cannot abandon yet cannot fully trust; not in the arms of a high-powered lawyer who offers her sex without love in return for the comfort of his companionship. She must seek help from a tough homicide detective, to whom she is compellingly drawn, and from a computer genius crippled in body yet strong in spirit. Her life under a sinister sentence of death, her job hanging by an unraveling thread, she must search the corridors of power to uncover a sexual breeding ground for murder. And finally, what she discovers is as shattering to her faith and trust as it is fatally threatening to her and thos she loves.

Who she really is and what she really does are bewildering questions even for Toy Johnson. She only knows that a near death experience has launched her on a journey into the unknown-a journey she is destined to repeat again and again with astonishing results. When she returns to her familiar work world as a teacher in Southern California and her seemingly ideal marriage to a brilliant surgeon, she is haunted by dreamlike memories of children on the brink of death-children she believes she has somehow saved.

Her husband, Stephen, thinks she is hallucinating. Her best friend, Sylvia, thinks she is suffering from the frustrations of a childless marriage. The staff of a high-tech Manhattan hospital thinks this is how she deals with her mysterious and frightening malady. Yet despite what anyone thinks, when Toy sees herself on television rescuing a boy from a deadly fire, she knows she is a purveyor of miracles-a living angel. But this newfound vision of herself is challenged when she is arrested for kidnapping and charged with murder.

Toy's incredible journey into the realms of magic and divine intervention climaxes in a breathtaking courtroom trial where the laws of man come in riveting conflict with far higher laws, and ordinary reason comes face to face with extraordinary revelation. While Nancy Taylor Rosenberg offers here the same gripping level of drama and suspense for which she is famous, she also opens the door to a wondrous world where the spirit can triumphantly transcend the flesh. In Toy Johnson, she has crated a heroine who will do more than make you believe in angels-she will make you believe in human beings.

In "First Offense," Nancy Taylor Rosenberg draws on her personal experience as a California probation officer to create a remarkable heroine in Ann Carlisle, who suddenly finds herself the target of someone who wishes to harm not only her but also her teenage son. As a probation officer, Ann knows what it means to walk a treacherously thin line between dangerous criminals who have scores to settle-and the system that seeks to punish them. As a wife, she holds closely guarded secrets about her police officer husband, who inexplicitly vanished over four years ago. And as a woman who has been sexually reawakened by a handsome, hard-driving district attorney after being alone too long, she is haunted by the specter of a mate who may suddenly reappear ... and terrified on an unknown enemy who seems to know her every move and thought.

The danger is clear to Ann from the moment a bullet hits her while she is leaving work one day. Ironically, the man who comes to her aid and saver her life is one of the first offenders she is supervising-convicted drug dealer Jimmy Sawyer. What was this smooth talking, slick moving, almost too good looking young man doing at the scene of the shooting?

No one is able to help Ann find answers, not her dynamic, career obsessed lover, or the cops who were buddies of her missing husband and who look on her as prone to shock and fantasy-especially when the evidence of an unspeakable crime she finds in Jimmy Sawyer's house disappears before she can prove it existed. Meanwhile, she is investigating a man accused of a series of brutal rapes, never suspecting his case will have a bearing on her own growing peril.

Brilliant, hard-driving Stella Cataloni is the star of the Dallas Distric Attorney's office, with an amazing 100 percent conviction rate. Buth the conviction she most desperately wants agonizingly eludes her. The fire that years ago killed her parents and scarred her life remains unsolved. When her ex-boyfriend, Tom Randall, who stella is convinced set the fire, suddenly reappears in Houston, Stella vows revenge.

But when Randall is brutally murdered, his death puts the arson case in a new light and gives Houston D.A. Holly Oppenheimer the ruthless opportunity to put Stella behind bars for both crimes. Once Stella's friend, Holly becomes a formidable adversary, willing to use her knowledge of Stella's personal secrets to her own advantage. As headlines scream BATTLE OF THE WOMEN D.A.'s and the media circus begins, Stella's key hope of proving her innocence is to do what the police cannot or will not do: find the killer who has mocked the law not once but twice.

Stella finds herself in a maze of intrigue and corruption stretching back fifteen years-and leading to ugly revelations behind flawless masks of innocence. Plagued by suspicions that seem too horrible to be true yet refuse to be denied, she realizes she is being shadowed by a murderer as she seeks the truth in her own defense. Even as she uses every tool-from forensic animation to virtual reality-to turn the tide of the courtroom battle, Stella must apply every ounce of her nerve and brains to escape the unseen enemy who will stop at nothing to see her dead.

With tension that turns tighter at every searing exposure and disclosure, and total authenticity in every line, "Trial by Fire" proves that Nancy Taylor Rosenberg is the most compelling writer of legal thrillers today.

This dead-on convincing thriller about a woman law enforcer's fevered pursuit of a criminal abounds with the authenticity Nancy Taylor Rosenberg brings to it. As a former investigator, she offers intimate knowledge of how crime and punishment really work-on both sides of the law.

Set in the crowded courts and glamorous suburbs of Southern California, this compulsively readable novel tells the story of Lily Forrester, a feisty, dedicated District Attorney on the rise in her professional career and on the brink in her private life. Newly appointed as Chief of the Sex Crimes Division, Lily is eager to plunge into a job she has long coveted. At the same time, she is coping with a floundering marriage and the lure of a man to whom she is strongly attracted.

All that keeps Lily's marriage together and keeps her from losing herself entirely in work is her quirky thirteen-year-old daughter, Shana. But when an intruder invades Lily's home and commits an unspeakable act, Lily Forrester heads out on a trial of vengeance beyond any law but that of her own rage. With one shattering act, her life spins out of control into a realm of unimaginable uncertainty. Suddenly, she is agonizingly alone, with a circle of danger closing in around her, leaving her no place to run, no place to hide, and no one to trust. For Lily Forrester has already gone too far to turn back.

Rachel Simmons, an idealistic thirty-four-year-old widow with two children to raise, joins the Oak Grove, California police force for reasons that go beyond economic necessity. Upholding the law has had a special meaning for Rachel ever since she was kidnapped as a child and her life was saved by a courageous policeman. When Rachel witnesses a vicious abuse of police authority-and reports it-she propels herself into a nightmare of conflict and terror. By cracking the sacred blue code of silence, she has made enemies of the very men and women who hold her life in their hands-armed adversaries who are accustomed to exercising their power and will stop at nothing to ensure her silence. Suddenly there is danger everywhere. Rachel's children are threatened, her name is slandered, a shooting frame-up puts her on the legal defensive, and someone is bent on her death. She is alone, increasingly afraid, and forced to rely on an ambitious attorney whose motives she questions, even as he seems to offer a way out. With its riveting revelations of the harsh reality of life behind the badge and a plot that moves from shock to shock, Abuse of Power bristles with danger and excitement, both on the streets, and in court. Its shattering conclusion will make readers think hard about many issues in today's headlines. This compelling novel shows Nancy Taylor Rosenberg at her best.