Sheer Gall - Tapa dura

It is a case designed to set St. Louis lawyer Rachel Gold's blood boiling and her passion for justice ablaze. Fellow attorney Sally Wade comes to Rachel hideously bruised, the victim of a brutal beating by the husband she is in the process of divorcing. Even worse, the husband is blue-blooded Neville McBride, a prominent member of the city's power elite, who can be sure of kid-glove treatment by the authorities. Will Rachel represent the battered wife in a lawsuit to separate Neville from some of his millions? Does the sun rise in the east? Rachel gets set to wreak legal vengeance with relish.
Before Rachel can write her first writ, however, this open-and-shut case of spousal abuse turns into an ever widening net of murderous intrigue. Sally is found slain, tied up in bed, and clues point to her husband. But though the husband is a prime police suspect, Rachel has mounting doubts about the guilt of this man she would love to hang.