Guest Blogger: JEANINE PIRRO

I am honored to have as my guest blogger Jeanine Pirro, author of the terrific Dani Fox series of legal thrillers. Who better to write about the law than the woman who lives it? Read on to learn more about the book and how you can win your own copy!

From Jeanine Pirro:

I came into law enforcement at a time when women were nearly invisible--not as victims, there were plenty of those--but as prosecutors, lawyers, investigators, advocates and judges.   The year was 1978.  Entering the courthouse in Westchester County was like entering an all boys club.  As a woman in the District Attorney’s Office and then as the first woman District Attorney I was most often the only woman in the room.

It meant that I had to fight harder and have a thick skin.  But, I saw things the men missed that a woman would know that made my cases even stronger.

As I look back at that time in my career I realize how difficult it was.  Writing these novels about a naive woman prosecutor coming up through the ranks like I did lets me take another look at this amazing period of transition and see it in a way I couldn’t when I was focused on my role in the criminal justice system. 

I spent years building cases--piecing together details gathered by detectives and others, asking questions, looking for the lies as well as for the truth.  I was looking for the bad guys but I also got an education I wasn’t expecting:  as it turns out, the justice system is one of the best schools for writing fiction.  Love, greed, desperation--I saw it all move people to do terrible things.  I realize now that I see the world a little differently after all that--and the instincts to see through a story in a particular way has never left me.  Now I get to really dive into what moves the detectives, what goes through the mind of a sociopath, how the politics of the system can shift the direction of an investigation in ways the public never realizes. 

Building a case is like creating a blueprint for the crime—it traces back from the crime to its beginnings.  You want it to be clear how each step led to another.  Writing a novel I realized can’t be that sure-footed or you will lose the reader. It was a great challenge to figure out how to create all the layers in Dani Fox’s, my main character, world so that the reader would experience the case in the same way she does, slowly, sometimes through detours, filtered by her experience and those around her.  I’ve always had an ear for the way people express themselves—the banter of people who are used to working with each other in difficult circumstances, the way language can be used to put class distinctions front and center, and how the words chosen tell so much more than the speaker even knows—so getting the voices right of each of the characters has been some of the most fun of all. 

But believe me, it’s been hard work!  Coming up with the crime is the easy part—writing about all the people involved in solving and prosecuting it was not.  And the more intimate scenes!  I wanted to make Dani Fox, my main character, believable in every way and that meant getting not only her professional life right on the page, but also her personal life, her love life which since she’s young is bound to be complicated. 

I didn’t know what it was going to be like when I first started writing fiction.  A literary agent—now my agent--chased me for years before I said yes.   Now, I can’t stop thinking of what Dani is going to face next—and it’s a case I can’t wait to tackle.   

 CLEVER FOX is the second installment in Pirro's adrenaline-laced series featuring Pirro's alter-ego, young assistant D.A. Dani Fox. Outspoken and fiery, Pirro has a wide-ranging perspective of the criminal justice system in which she worked for decades. Celebrated for her ground-breaking advocacy and fearless stances, this crusading prosecutor, judge, and Emmy-winning television host (Justice with Judge Jeanine on the Fox News Channel) now turns to fiction to reveal a different kind of truth about crime and justice.

I loved this book! Here's my review, as published in Booklist:

This sequel to Sly Fox (2012) finds prosecutor Dani Fox summoned to work on New Year's Eve 1979. The only woman in the Westchester County district attorney's office, she heads up the newly formed Domestic Violence Unit and fights the entrenched old-boy network on a daily basis. A New Jersey Mafia dons daughter is found tortured and murdered, and Fox and her journalist boyfriend, Will, rush to the crime scene, in Yonkers. As Fox and her investigating officer start digging, they find that the dead woman had been having an affair with her father's most hated enemy, head of another crime family. The FBI has an eyewitness agent who can place the don at the scene of the crime, and political pressure becomes unbearable as Fox's boss demands immediate justice. She isn't comfortable with charging a man based on circumstantial evidence, and as witnesses start disappearing, the pressure really heats up. Pirro joins the ranks of fellow prosecutors Linda Fairstein and Marcia Clark in turning out tautly written legal thrillers, and Pirro's expertise shines on every page.

If you would like to win a copy of CLEVER FOX, just send an email to contest@gmail.com, with "CLEVER FOX" as the subject. Make sure to include your name and mailing address in the US only. This contest is going to run for two weeks, so your odds of winning are pretty good - if you enter by August 23, 2013. Good luck!