Midnight

New Year’s Eve is just another night for Carol Scilingo and Tom Carroway, secretary and law clerk for Judge Canter. The holiday might have been different if single mom Carol didn’t have her young son and aging mother to care for, or if Tom wasn’t struggling with a gambling addiction that’s left him deeply in debt to a loan shark. But here they are, on the last day of the year, waiting for the judge to rule on a controversial union decision so they can go home to their respective homes and watch the ball drop on TV. Only their day—and lives—take a dramatic turn when Tom finds Judge Cantor dead in his chambers. When a judge dies, the staff keep their jobs until the end of that year. Unless they want to be unemployed in a few hours, Tom and Carol will have to pretend the judge is still alive until midnight. Their plan is simple, until corruption and greed force them into a twisted conspiracy that will unearth their darkest secrets and lies . . . A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year