Skinny-Dipping.

Skinny-Dipping By Claire Hamner Matturro Reviewed by Cheryle M. Dodd

The press release caught my attention: "Article in Florida Bar News leads to major book deal." I was excited to see that the Bar Journal's companion publication had launched someone into an enviable book contract and I was very curious about the Bar News' role in this scenario. It seems that Florida Bar member Claire Matturro read about the National Legal Fiction Writing for Lawyers Contest sponsored by SEAK, Inc., in a 2002 Bar News article. She entered and won first place. HarperCollins Publishers liked Skinny-Dipping, too, and published it last fall and will publish Wildcat Wine in the spring.

This mystery/legal thriller introduces Lilly Belle Rose Cleary, an insurance defense attorney practicing in Sarasota. The story begins with Lilly's winning a case; however, before she can savor the win, she is defending herself in a chokehold. Not many pages into the book she is shot at; her files are rifled; and a client dies from a toxic marijuana joint. Adding to her legal adventures comes the despicable new client, Dr. Winston Calvin Randolph, the attending obstetrician in the delivery of a brain-damaged baby. While keeping herself from harm's way, Lilly tries to determine if these assults are related to her Randolph case.

Even with the preparation for a complex medical malpractice trial, the author succeeds in entertaining the reader with a cheeky main character and a supporting ensemble that includes a law partner who believes he is Stonewall Jackson's reincarnation, a Sunshine Skyway Bridge-diving rottweiler, an "unnaturally" calm secretary, and a former boyfriend/house guest who brings his pet albino ferret with him.

"With the trial attorneys I knew, they were all funny; humor was very important to them to balance the stress. I thought, 'I've got to get it in the book.'" Matturro wanted this book to be tim, and it is.

Skinny-Dipping is available at bookstores and via the Internet.

Cheryle Dodd is editor of The Florida Bar Journal and Florida Bar News.