Terminal Ambition
by Kate McGuinness

Product Description/Synopsis (from Amazon.com):
Maggie Mahoney wants justice for women at her law firm.
The firm chairman wants to be Attorney General.
Only one can win in this legal thriller.

Sweeny, Owens & Boyle sits at the top of Wall Street law firms. Brilliant and beautiful, Maggie Mahoney became a partner and the trophy wife of its managing attorney. Her husband’s death renders Maggie an outsider with the firm’s male establishment and creates a power vacuum.

Obsessed with his dream of becoming the next Attorney General, firm chairman, Andy Anderson, chooses a surprising replacement: Jack Slattery, a reputed sexist. Jack’s background hardly qualifies him for such a prominent position. Maggie suspects Jack has something on Andy, but what is it? Forced to become a sleuth, she stages a break-in to gather evidence.

Andy’s ambition drives him to desperate measures. With proof of misconduct in hand, Maggie demands justice, but it comes at a high price.

If ambition rules, can justice prevail in this legal thriller?

My Thoughts:
When I was offered the chance to read and review Kate McGuinness’s legal thriller Terminal Ambition, I was really excited. I may have kissed corporate life goodbye several years ago to be a self-employed writer/actor/improviser, but I still appreciate a good story. (I’m still waiting for someone to write one centered on the mortgage industry.)

I was not disappointed. McGuinness’s protagonist, Sweeney and Owens law partner Maggie Mahoney is as three dimensional as any of the women I know in real life, and I had no trouble connecting with her. As a feminist myself, I also had no trouble sharing her very real frustration at the double standard she had to deal with, as a woman in general and as a woman in an overwhelmingly male industry.

But Maggie wasn’t the only character whose story appealed to me. I was also very much intrigued by Ginger and Rosalinda, as well as by the mystery of what was really going on with managing partner Erling “Andy” Anderson.

Aside from compelling characters, Terminal Ambition also had a story that was well balanced in terms of character development, plot development and pace. I’ll confess that the prologue left me expecting more of a murder mystery than a true thriller, but once I was into the novel, it was a fast read that left me really satisfied.

The last section of the book teases the next novel from McGuinness – another Maggie Mahoney story – I’m already looking forward to reading that.

Bottom line? Terminal Ambition is terminally awesome.

Goes well with…a vodka martini and a plate of sushi.