What Carl Hiaasen and a host of South Florida's finest authors did for Sunshine State crime capers in the New York Times bestseller Naked Came the Manatee, William Bernhardt now does for legal thrillers -- with the help of a "dream team" of today's hottest suspense writers. Like a literary game of Telephone, Natural Suspects begins with a chapter from Bernhardt. Then each writer contributes a chapter and passes it along to the next. The result is a completely inventive, brilliantly plotted novel of suspense. Can you guess who wrote each chapter?

Arthur Hightower made a name for himself and a vast fortune in the oil business. But when the volatile tycoon decides to disinherit his spoiled children and cheating wife, he makes the biggest mistake of his life -- and the last. After declaring his intentions, Hightower turns up on Thanksgiving Day... clubbed to death and stuffed in a meat locker, clutching a frozen asset -- his wife's precious pearl necklace. Now Julia Hightower stands charged with the cold-as-ice crime of murdering for millions. While the sensational trial has New York in a frenzy, a curious cast of characters face off in and out of the courtroom.

Devin McGee, a small-time lawyer about to hit the big-time defending Julia Hightower -- if her intimate encounter with the prosecutor doesn't catch up with her... Trent Ballard, the quirky assistant D.A., who owns a huge pet rabbit and thinks his tryst with Devin will help him get a conviction... Patrick Roswell, a wannabe reporter sitting on a scoop that could turn the trial upside-down, unless a scalpel-wielding clown decides to kill the story -- and Patrick...Sissy Hightower, Julia's sex-crazed, airheaded daughter-in-law, who has a suitcase full of secrets... Robert S. Rutledge, a powerful Wall Street warrior with a lot riding on the Hightower verdict -- and a lot to learn about messing with the wrong people... and Cordelia, the mystery woman that everyone seems to know.

All are in for the trial of their lives -- but who among them is the true natural suspect.