Double Tap

A woman who built a high-tech software company serving the military is found dead in her home, shot twice in the head at close range. The two wounds sit tightly together, the pattern known as a double tap, which is the mark of a trained and practiced killer. Paul Madriani agrees to defend the man charged with her murder, a career soldier with a service record full of unexplained gaps. The trouble is that the client will not talk. He refuses to say where he was or what he was doing during those missing years, and that silence leaves his lawyer working with almost nothing. With no help from the accused, Madriani sets out to find the truth himself. His search leads in two directions: into the soldier's hidden past, and into the secrets the dead businesswoman left behind. Both trails turn dangerous, and both suggest that the government may be keeping its own version of events from the courtroom. Double Tap is a Paul Madriani legal thriller by Steve Martini, mixing courtroom drama with a conspiracy of military secrets.