12 Months to Live

The novel opens on the eve of a high-profile murder trial in Suffolk County, New York. Jane Smith, a criminal defense attorney and former NYPD cop, meets with her client Rob Jacobson at the Riverhead Correctional Facility. Jacobson, heir to a publishing house and owner of the biggest real estate company in the Hamptons, stands accused of murdering the Gates family: father Mitch, mother Kathy, and teenage daughter Laurel, all shot in the head in their rented summer house. Jane tells Jacobson she does not care whether he is innocent; she only needs twelve jurors to believe him. The prosecution's case rests on Jacobson's DNA and fingerprints found throughout the house and an eyewitness who saw him speeding away the night of the killings. Jacobson insists he was framed. Jane's investigator is Jimmy Cunniff, her best friend, an ex-NYPD cop who was fired after a controversial shooting and now owns a tavern in Sag Harbor.

Before the trial begins, Nassau County District Attorney Gregg McCall approaches Jane with a second case. Six months before the Gates murders, another family was killed in Garden City: Hank Carson, his wife Lily, and their teenage daughter Morgan. The case was classified as a burglary gone wrong, but Hank's grandmother never accepted that explanation. McCall reveals that Hank had a severe gambling problem and owed money to Bobby Salvatore, a powerful bookmaker. The grandmother funded a new investigation before she died, and Jane agrees to take both cases simultaneously.

Jane then visits her best friend, Dr. Samantha Wylie, for what she expects to be a routine appointment. Sam delivers devastating news: Jane has brain and neck cancer involving squamous cells, a type of cancerous cell that has spread into her lymph nodes. Sam outlines treatment options including chemotherapy and radiation, but Jane refuses to start during the trial. Sam estimates a worst case of one year; Jane negotiates up to fourteen months. She decides to tell no one, not even Jimmy.

Suffolk County DA Kevin Ahearn delivers a methodical opening statement emphasizing the physical evidence and the brutality of the crime. Jane counters with theatrical flair, applauding Ahearn's performance and drawing a rebuke from Judge Jackson Prentice III. She hammers her central argument: There is no motive. As the trial proceeds, Ahearn calls Nick Morelli, a local fishing guide and Laurel's ex-boyfriend, who testifies he saw Jacobson kissing the teenage Laurel outside a bar weeks before the murders. Ahearn times this revelation for late Friday so the jury will sit with it over the weekend. Jane confronts Jacobson, who admits the encounter but claims nothing more happened. She calls him a lying son of a bitch for concealing it.

Shortly after, Morelli's fishing boat is found drifting with blood on the deck but no sign of Morelli. Ahearn accuses Jacobson of silencing his witness. Then Jacobson's stolen BMW turns up at a chop shop in Queens with Laurel's fingerprints in the back seat and her underwear. Jane challenges the chain of custody and argues the evidence was planted, but the damage mounts.

Someone fires at Jane while she trains on a trail in the Springs. She escapes and finds a threatening note on her car warning her to stop defending Jacobson. Jimmy determines the shooter used standard police ammunition, leading him to suspect a local cop named Mike Rousselle. On the Carson case, McCall identifies Artie Shore, an ex-con who works for Salvatore, as a suspect. Shore barricades himself in his apartment and kills himself during a standoff after receiving a call from an untraceable burner phone.

Ahearn calls Gus Hennessy, Jacobson's friend and real estate rival, who testifies he overheard Jacobson threaten to kill Mitch Gates during a beach argument. Jane cross-examines him aggressively, establishing that distance and high tide made overhearing the conversation nearly impossible. That evening, she spots Hennessy's car at the Jacobson home until two in the morning, suggesting an affair between Hennessy and Jacobson's wife Claire.

Jane's older sister Brigid attended Duke University with Jacobson and remains his close friend. Brigid has non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, and has outlived her prognosis. Claire tells Jane to ask Brigid what she was doing with Rob the night of the murders, a claim Brigid denies. Meanwhile, Jane takes in a stray elderly black Lab she names Rip and begins dating Dr. Ben Kalinsky, the local veterinarian, finding rare moments of normalcy.

The Carson investigation takes a dangerous turn when Jimmy is ambushed at McCall's house by a man who injects him with a sedative, warns him to drop the case, and threatens to kill Jane. McCall vanishes. The same attacker breaks into Jane's home, muzzles Rip, and repeats his warning. He then sets Jimmy's bar on fire. Jimmy suspects the stalker is Joe Champi, a former NYPD officer long believed dead after staging a suicide at the Verrazano Bridge. Jimmy's former partner, Detective Mickey Dunne, confirms Champi had a history as a fixer and hired killer for powerful people, including Salvatore.

Jane opens her defense by recalling Hennessy and exposing his affair with Claire, establishing he benefits from Jacobson's conviction. She then re-calls prosecution witness Otis Miller, attempting to cast him as an alternative suspect who was having an affair with Kathy Gates. Miller stuns the courtroom by announcing he is gay and introducing his partner, destroying Jane's theory. Jane calls Brigid as a surprise alibi witness. Brigid testifies she was with Jacobson the night of the murders. Jacobson leaps up and calls her a liar, then fakes a heart attack to halt testimony. At the hospital, he admits he staged the collapse to prevent Brigid from revealing their affair, because his prenuptial agreement with Claire contains an infidelity clause. To secure Brigid's cooperation, he has offered to fund her experimental cancer treatment in Switzerland.

Mickey Dunne is shot and killed execution-style in the Bronx. At Mickey's apartment, Jimmy finds a photograph of a teenage Jacobson with a young Lily Biondi, who grew up to become Lily Carson, the murdered Garden City mother. Jimmy visits Lily's father, Paul Biondi, who reveals that Jacobson raped Lily on prom night and that Champi appeared afterward with a payoff and a nondisclosure agreement (NDA). This connects Jacobson to both murdered families. Pat Palmer, Laurel Gates's boyfriend, then ambushes Jimmy and reveals that Jacobson also raped Laurel and that the entire Gates family signed an NDA and accepted a payoff. Palmer flees the courthouse after receiving a threatening phone call, and his car is later found at the bottom of cliffs in Montauk.

Jimmy is shot outside his home. Palmer, who had been following Jimmy to ask for help, scares off the shooter and calls 911. The bullet removed from Jimmy matches the bullets from the Gates crime scene, meaning someone other than the incarcerated Jacobson used the murder weapon. Jane presents this ballistic evidence to the jury.

Brigid returns from Switzerland and provides a full alibi. Jane forces Claire to the stand and establishes that she went to a hotel in Montauk to meet Hennessy the night of the murders. Claire invokes her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Jacobson insists on testifying, revealing his father's murder-suicide and claiming Mitch Gates invited him over to ask for money. Ahearn dismantles the testimony, noting Jacobson cannot name his therapists and that he entered into an NDA with the Gates family, raising the question of what he needed them to keep silent about.

Before closing arguments, Jane and Jacobson exchange slaps in the attorney room. Ahearn calls Jacobson a sociopath. Jane argues that reasonable doubt demands acquittal. The jury returns not-guilty verdicts on all three counts. Jacobson's last private words to Jane are a question: How many times can someone get away with murder?

Three weeks later, Jane, now beginning cancer treatment, spots Jacobson leaving a bar with a young girl and follows them to his home. She hears the girl scream and is tackled by Joe Champi, very much alive and armed. Jacobson taunts Jane, hinting he killed the Gateses. Champi cryptically references the murder-suicide of Jacobson's father, implying the family's criminality runs deeper than Jane knows. Champi drives Jane home at gunpoint to stage her death as a suicide. When Ben arrives unexpectedly, Champi shoots him. Jane fires a concealed Walther air pistol, hitting Champi between the eyes with a BB and temporarily blinding him. She retrieves her Glock from the hallway table and kills him. Ben survives with a graze wound.

Jane and Jimmy visit Jacobson and play a recording from Champi's dying moments in which he states Jacobson was "on trial for killing the wrong family." Jacobson insists Champi acted alone. The novel ends with Jacobson repeating his refrain: "I. Did. Not. Kill. Those. People," this time referring to the Carsons, leaving the truth of both triple homicides deliberately unresolved.