Proof by Beverley McLachlin

Jilly Truitt has always put her job as a criminal defense lawyer first, but becoming a new mother has changed her priorities. For the first time in her career, she's taking some long-overdue time away from her firm and the day-to-day grind of cases, enjoying the quiet delights of motherhood.

Then the daughter of celebrity pop star Trist Jones goes missing and his ex-wife, Katie, is charged with kidnapping. Everyone from the police to the media believe Katie is guiltyher reputation was ripped to shreds in the tabloids during their divorce and subsequent custody battle. Call it mother's intuition, but Jilly has her doubts. Katie's whole life was about being a mother, and she and Trist were very public about their problems conceiving, shining a spotlight on their use of a surrogate. After everything she went through to have a child, Katie claims that she would never do anything to hurt her daughter, and she begs Jilly to take her case.

Jilly agrees, but Katie's prospects don't look good. Police have found a witness who says he saw Katie with Tess the afternoon she disappeared, and they are close to giving up the search. The best chance Jilly has of clearing Katie's name is to find the missing girl. But as the weeks go by, the police begin to suspect that Tess might be dead. With the threat of a murder charge hanging over Katie's head, Jilly must find the real kidnapper and save Tess before it's too late. (From Simon & Schuster)

• 64 works of Canadian fiction to read in fall 2024

Beverley McLachlin was the first female chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. She held the position for nearly 20 years. After McLachlin retired from the court, she became a writer, publishing the memoir Truth Be Told, which won the Writers' Trust Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing and the Ottawa Book Award for Nonfiction, and the thrillers Full Disclosure and Denial.

Other books by Beverley McLachlin