The Practice of Deceit: A Novel Book

When Eric Lavender meets the attorney Colleen O'Brien Golden, his position as one of Manhattan's chic psychotherapists and most eligible bachelors suddenly loses its appeal. The sexy, stylish Colleen lures him to live with her and her young daughter in the exclusive suburb of Scarsdale. To his amazement, Eric is besotted and soon settles into the unexpected bliss of marriage and domesticity with their new baby and his loving stepdaughter. He even becomes a local hero when the police turn to him for help in resolving a hostage crisis.
But Eric's transformation comes to an abrupt halt when the police knock on his door again -- this time with handcuffs. He and Colleen are caught up in an explosive conflict of interest involving their clients. When Eric discovers that Colleen has gone to extreme lengths to conceal her secret past, she retaliates with horrendous charges against him. Eric must uncover the truth before his children, his career, and his freedom are taken from him forever.
As she did in her bestseller Almost, Elizabeth Benedict navigates the turbulent waters of love, law, psychology, and ethics with biting wit and penetrating insight. The Practice of Deceit is a razor-sharp novel of marriage -- and divorce -- gone awry.

Publishers Weekly

Eric Lavender, a 40-something Manhattan therapist, transforms from hard-core bachelor to blissed-out family man then alleged felon in Benedict's new psychological thriller (after Almost). Soon after Eric falls for Colleen O'Brien Golden, strawberry blonde Scarsdale divorce lawyer and single mom, and her toddler, Zoe, an unplanned pregnancy precipitates marriage and his relocation to the suburbs, where much to his surprise, he finds contentment in domesticity. But Eric's creeping suspicions that Colleen-"with her milky breasts... and her blazing feminist ideals to help women and children suffering at the hands of so many deadbeat dads"-is not the woman she seems put an end to their idyll after a few years. The story about her first husband doesn't add up, and it turns out that her book, Your Fair Share! Women and Divorce, was ghostwritten. On top of this shaky foundation of trust, Eric and Colleen encounter a disastrous professional conflict of interest-he unwittingly takes a client whose wife has hired Colleen as her divorce lawyer. The upshot: Eric finds himself cuffed, jailed and falsely accused of molesting Zoe. This intelligently written and briskly plotted update on the femme fatale story makes an absorbing beach read. (June) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.