One afternoon in late March, Sandy Stern, the brilliant, quixotic defence lawyer in Presumed Innocent, returns home to find his wife Clara dead in the garage. They have been married for thirty-one years. Her suicide note leaves him just four words - 'Can you forgive me?' But on the 6th March Clara had expected to live . . . 'A delight . . . over 500 pages of suspicion, allegation, detection, false confessions and half-truths . . . tied up so tightly that you're holding your breath in anticipation . . . hugely readable' Observer 'Expert and excellent . . . The Burden of Proof is a new sort of novel - a detective story full of people on the make, on the break or settling for second best: a riveting tale' Evening Standard 'A wonderful read from tight start to taut end' Mail on Sunday