A compromised President, his murdered mistress, enemies foreign and domestic, and a rogue Marine Commander lusting for power: the impeachment is the least of America's problems...President Steve Wade believes his latest affair with a beautiful Lebanese woman, Lucia Benoni, is a secret. When Lucia is murdered in mysterious circumstances, FBI Agent Kelly Smith is called in to investigate and uncovers links between Lucia, a hostile foreign power, a group of vicious white supremacists and a shadowy high-placed Washington figure known only as'Fox'. As Wade continues to deny the affair, the press gets on the trail. Because of the national security implications, there are demands in Congress for Wade's impeachment but if this were to happen, the law provides that Vice President Ellen Trevathan should become President.'Fox' and his associates have other plans, which do not include allowing the lawful succession to take place. As time runs out Kelly may hold the key to preventing a coup d'état and a possible civil war.

Born in 1946, Peter Murphy graduated from Cambridge University and pursued a career in the law in England, the United States and The Hague. He practised as a barrister in London for a decade, then took up a professorship at a law school in Texas, a position he held for more than twenty years. Towards the end of that period he returned to Europe as counsel at the Yugoslavian War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague for almost a decade. In 2007 he returned to England to take up an appointment as a judge of the Crown Court. He retired as Resident Judge and Honorary Recorder of Peterborough in 2015.Peter started writing fiction more than twenty years ago, but following his retirement from the bench he became a full-time author, often drawing on the many experiences of his former career. Two political thrillers about the American presidency: Removal and Test of Resolve were followed by eight legal thrillers in the Ben Schroeder series about a barrister practising in London in the 1960s and 1970s. Alongside those he also penned the light-hearted series of short story colllections featuring Judge Walden of Bermondsey in the 'Rumpole' tradition, based in part on his own experiences as a lawyer and judge, and recently published A Statue for Jacob, based on the true story of Jacob de Haven.Peter passed away in September 2022.