Erin McCabe is a New Jersey criminal defense attorney doing her best to live a quiet life in the wake of a profound personal change - until a newsworthy case puts both her career and her safety in jeopardy...

Erin McCabe has been referred the biggest case of her career. Four months ago, the son of a New Jersey state senator was found fatally stabbed in a rundown motel near Atlantic City. Sharise Barnes, a nineteen-year-old transgender sex worker, is in custody, and there seems little doubt of a guilty verdict. Because Sharise admits she killed the senator's son - in self-defense.

As a trans woman herself, Erin knows that defending Sharise will blow her own private life wide open and doubtless deepen her estrangement from her family. Yet she feels uniquely qualified to help Sharise and duty-bound to protect her from the possibility of a death sentence.

While Erin works with her law partner, former FBI agent Duane Swisher, to build a case, the distraught senator begins using the full force of his influence to publicly discredit everyone involved in defending Sharise. And behind the scenes, his tactics are even more dangerous. For his son had secrets that could destroy his own political aspirations - secrets worth killing for...

'An emotionally resonant debut... Welcome - and quietly ground-breaking' - New York Times Book Review

'Does a remarkably effective job of mixing an exciting legal thriller with the personal story of its protagonist... But the message doesn't overwhelm the medium. Readers will find that By Way of Sorrow is a compulsively riveting page-turner with a complex heroine, a captivating plot, and no easy answers. It's one of the best thrillers of the year' - Mystery Scene