Her Deadly Game

“The family legal mantle had fallen to Ella, child number three, and it had been a heavy load. Ella was part lawyer, part caretaker, a task she shared with daughter number two, Margaret. Keera had been unexpected, born ten years after Maggie. With an infant at home, their mother could no longer function as Patsy’s caretaker. Ella and Maggie filled that role.”

This passage offers early insight into the dynamics of the Duggan family. It illustrates how Patsy’s alcohol use shapes the family, driving their behaviors and, in many ways, defining their characters. The lack of boundaries between the family and the firm that is shown in the passage reflects the way the family brings the personal into the professional.

“‘Maybe you could spend the night. We could play chess by the fireplace. Like old times.’

‘It’s ninety degrees out, Dad.’

‘So, we won’t light a fire.’

‘We’ll see,’ she said, because it was easier than saying no.”

At the beginning of the novel, Patsy attempts to reconnect with Keera through their shared love of chess, which has always bonded them, but Keera maintains her distance. Her experiences as the child of someone who misuses alcohol have resulted in a lack of trust and a desire to maintain a “safe” distance. Throughout the novel, Keera’s relationship with Patsy will shift, and they will reconnect through both working the case together and playing chess online.

“‘It’s like that riddle we used to try to solve as kids,’ Ford said. Rossi shrugged and shook his head. ‘You know. The riddle in which Mary is found dead beside a table and an open window. There’s glass on the floor and a puddle of water. The autopsy determines Mary died of shock and loss of oxygen.’”

Ford reminds Rossi of a famous riddle, the answer to which is that Mary is a fish. While some of the elements of the riddle are echoed in the LaRussa crime scene, like the puddle of water, the real meaning behind this idea is the need to keep an open mind. In this moment, Dugoni is also reminding the audience that everything in this crime is not how it appears and that a shift in perspective can drastically change one’s view, as when Litchfield discovers that Anne had advanced cancer.

“If the police had taken LaRussa to Police Headquarters, they suspected him. The police never questioned you with the intent to eliminate you as a suspect, no matter what they told you. Nothing a suspect could say would improve his defense. Each time he opened his mouth, it was a mistake.”

Keera offers an insider’s perspective on the way police will intentionally misdirect a suspect to get what they want. This sort of knowledge reflects Dugoni’s real-life experience as an attorney. By offering bits of information like this, Dugoni establishes his credibility in the legal thriller genre and contributes to the realism of the novel.

“This signaled a major strategy shift. The Dark Knight had gone on the offensive, unlocking his knight and his queen to attack. Keera had a visceral reaction, as she had at her championship matches, but she remembered Patsy’s tutelage. Evaluate. Consider. Then move.”

Keera has recently been dipping her toes back into chess playing, although not at her former competitive level. Still, even this small shift signals Keera’s openness to reconnecting with her father, although her father’s identity as the Dark Knight has yet to be revealed. Dugoni also emphasizes Keera’s “visceral reaction,” showing that her connection with chess is deep and goes beyond just pleasing her father. In the final sentence, Keera’s thoughts foreshadow the way she will use chess strategy in the courtroom and in life.

“In chess terms, Ambrose had a strong grip on the center of the board. She had to find a way to move him off those squares and, if she couldn’t, then a way to bait him into moving. She thought of the Dark Knight and wondered if, after losing three successive matches, he was taking a different tack, relinquishing the center squares and giving Keera a false sense of security.”

In this passage, Keera considers the trial as a chess match, with Ambrose as her adversary. She also utilizes her current game with the Dark Knight to inform her perspective on Ambrose’s strategy. As the novel continues, Keera’s match with the Dark Knight will parallel the trial more closely, and she will use her nightly moves in the online match as a way of reflecting on the trial.

“His call, Rossi thought. Maybe his mistake. Rossi had sat through trials with Keera Duggan. She was a chip off her father’s block, a brawler. And definitely not someone to underestimate.”

Dugoni directly juxtaposes Rossi’s respect and admiration of Keera with Ambrose’s disrespect and contempt of her, establishing their characters as foils. It is because Rossi respects Keera that he can see her true character clearly, whereas Ambrose’s perspective is colored by his need for revenge. Ambrose’s limited perspective on Keera will prove to be his downfall, as his ethics completely disintegrate due to his need to punish and humiliate Keera.

“Subject: The Game of Your Life

I understand you’re a chess player. You’re in the game of your life, so play like your life depends on it…because it very well might. Don’t speak to anyone about this email until you understand. Trust no one but yourself. Everything will soon become clear.”

The first Jack Worthing email references Keera’s competitive chess career, showing that whoever sent the message investigated her background. In addition, by equating Keera’s investigation and trial with chess, Jack is putting Keera on alert to use chess strategy in law and life. The threat of danger is also notable, adding both urgency and tension without giving Keera any specifics.

“Keera responded king to h7, as if she feared his attack. She didn’t. She had her own plan. The Dark Knight just did not know it. From experience, Keera knew that Ambrose would also go on the offensive at the arraignment and play to the big media presence. He would attempt to scare and intimidate. Like the Dark Knight, he would fail. Keera had her own plan to be bold.”

Over the course of the novel, Keera’s chess match with the Dark Knight acts as a metaphor for other areas of the story. At times, the strategy she adopts in the game helps to clarify her perspective on the trial. In this example, her game with the Dark Knight is a jumping-off point for her reflections on Ambrose’s strategy. Like the Dark Knight, Ambrose has an aggressive strategy, one that Keera will take advantage of as she’s taking advantage of the Dark Knight’s strategy—she will feign fear and wait for her opportunity to be aggressive.

“‘We’re speculating about speculation here,’ she said, recalling another of Patsy’s mantras. Control what you can control. Deal with what is in front of you.”

In Part 2, Keera’s investigation still has more questions than answers, and the question of Jack Worthing’s identity is becoming more pressing. At this point, she and Harrison speculate that Jack is Anne LaRussa’s creation, but there are too many holes in that theory. Keera falls back on Patsy’s chess advice to refocus the investigation, concentrating on the next steps instead of big questions, and decides to investigate Anne’s background to determine if she would even understand the Jack Worthing reference.

“‘A Christmas play of some sort. She couldn’t provide all the details but said it was about an English family moving into a run-down cottage in the English countryside occupied by a family of ghosts. She remembered the play had two sets—a dark cottage covered in tarps, and the same cottage illuminated with candlelight and a warm fire in the hearth.’

‘One dark and one light.’ Harrison said, continuing to eat his salad. ‘Sort of like Jack Worthing and his brother, Ernest. Two sides of the same coin. Or am I reading too much into this?’”

One of the first people Jack Worthing sends Keera to visit is Vince’s grammar school teacher, Mary Bell, who reveals that Vince organized a play and then took the profits. Bell’s description of the play and Harrison’s comment both foreshadow the revelation of Vince’s double life. Like Jack Worthing in the Wilde play, Vince’s alter ego reflects his dark side, and Harrison recognizes the metaphor of this play from Vince’s childhood, which Vince chose specifically to perform.

“Underestimating her was his first big mistake. She unleashed what she had kept hidden. She moved her pawn to f5, signaling she had never been on the defensive. The gloves were off. The real battle was now on, and there would be no turning back for either side.”

Keera has been biding her time in her chess match with the Dark Knight, pretending to be intimidated and waiting for her moment to move. When she does, in this passage, it is sudden and, as she says earlier, “bold.” This boldness is a reflection of her courtroom style, and her sudden shift in strategy foreshadows how she will take control of the trial at the right time. “The gloves were off” is a boxing metaphor, indicating the escalation of the intensity of a fight; this subtly foreshadows the revelation of Patsy—a former boxer—as the Dark Knight.

“‘Something else?’ Harrison said. There was, she knew, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. In chess, sometimes her opponents’ moves surprised her, as the stump remover had surprised them. At such moments Patsy urged her to let her options gestate until they became clear.”

Keera is surprised by the discovery of the stump remover, and because she isn’t often surprised, in chess or law, it causes her to hesitate. Again, she finds herself falling back on her father’s advice and applying chess strategy. Keera’s ability to sit with information and wait patiently for the right moment is part of what makes her successful as a lawyer and investigator.

“Her father’s voice spoke in Keera’s head. Never defend without a plan to attack. She needed to somehow use Ambrose’s arrogance, overconfidence, and his intense desire to beat her against him.”

This quote highlights Keera’s use of chess strategy while also showing the depth of her connection to her father. Even though her current relationship with Patsy is strained, she continually falls back on his advice in both life and the courtroom. Here, she considers Patsy’s advice as she develops her courtroom strategy against Ambrose, using what she knows about him personally to do it.

“Vince never apologized. He offered to pay my medical expenses, my settlement. He even gave me a strong letter of reference, but at no time did he admit guilt or fault, and at no time did he apologize. He acted like he hadn’t done anything wrong and just went on about his business.”

As Keera and Harrison follow Jack Worthing’s clues, a picture develops of Vince as someone with a lifelong preoccupation with money, advancing The Intersection of Status, Wealth, and Morality. In addition, this lack of remorse Phil McPherson mentions echoes the sentiments of Spencer Tickman, from whose fraternity Vince stole thousands. Keera sees evidence of this lack of remorse herself after the trial, by which point her perspective on Vince has completely shifted.

“Was Vince LaRussa a psychopath? A person without conscience, who felt no empathy or remorse? Had Anne confronted him about his cheating and threatened to take everything LaRussa had earned and sent LaRussa into a fit of rage? Is that what Jack Worthing was trying to communicate?”

The developing picture of Vince as fixated on money and prone to unethical behavior and vengeance leads Keera and Harrison to consider whether he might be a sociopath or even a psychopath. Because they don’t know who Jack Worthing is, Keera also questions why Jack is pointing her in such specific directions. Keera is beginning to suspect that, somehow, Vince did kill Anne.

“Ambrose did what even the Sunday dinners did not. He’d brought them together, gave them a common enemy, made them a family who stood up for one another, and who cared for one another.”

At the beginning of the novel, Keera struggles with her relationship with her family. By returning to the firm, she also reassumes her role as the youngest sibling and is still grappling with Finding One’s Place in the Family. Although, at times, she resents the blurred boundaries between the family and the law firm, the family bands together to win the case, showing that just as Keera is finding her way in her new position as a defense attorney, she is also finding her way in her relationship with her family. Given that her previous relationship with Ambrose is the most significant secret she keeps from them, it is significant that he becomes the family’s “common enemy.”

“The video was, in essence, her queen in this chess game. Her most powerful piece. Now was her opportunity to attack. Ambrose had provided the opening. Lose this argument and she would lose the trial. Win, and she had a chance.”

As Harrison puts together a last-minute video simulation of their theory of the crime and they are preparing to air it in court, Keera sees the video as her “queen,” the most powerful piece on the chessboard and the one that often wins the game. As she gives her closing argument, Keera again uses chess strategy to remind herself of the importance of her closing statement.

“‘Brilliant,’ he said. Then he smiled. ‘Truly brilliant.’ Goose bumps ran up Keera’s spine and along her arms, the kind she used to get when Miller Ambrose stalked her.”

After Keera wins the case, Vince congratulates her. However, with all the information she’s acquired about Vince’s past, her perspective on him has shifted significantly, and her early sense that something about him is inauthentic is well founded. As the novel continues, Keera finds herself reacting to Vince the same way as when Ambrose was threatening her: She has an unconscious, bodily recognition of Vince as dangerous.

“‘The truth is rarely pure and never simple,’ Keera said. Bowers stopped in midpuff.

‘Vince used to say stuff like that.’

‘Vince or Jack Worthing?’ Keera said.

Bowers looked at her, but this time she didn’t correct Keera and tell her Jack Worthing wasn’t real. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.”

Keera quotes The Importance of Being Earnest, and though Vince’s mother doesn’t recognize the quote exactly, it resonates as being something Vince would say. However, when Keera presses her about whether Vince would say it, or his alter ego, Jack, Stephanie doesn’t know. This exchange highlights Vince’s double life, as even his mother can’t tell what is real about him and what is his alter ego.

“One thing Jack Worthing had taught Keera through his witnesses: Vince LaRussa was a survivor. He’d survived his father’s beatings, he’d learned how to lie to keep money he’d earned, and he had survived prosecution for stealing.”

Although the portrait of Vince as a remorseless thief focused only on money is building, Keera also notices this other thread in Vince’s history, which ultimately underlies his formation of an alter ego. She knows that Vince will do whatever it takes to survive and that if he killed Anne, his only concern is his own survival. Later, Keera will use this knowledge to assess Vince as an adversary and predict his next move.

“LaRussa said it with sincerity, as if he believed it, and without any thought of his wife’s grieving family. Without any empathy. Keera thought again of her interview with Phil McPherson. At no time did he apologize. He acted like he hadn’t done anything wrong and just went on about his business.”

In this scene directly following the trial, Keera sees Vince’s lack of remorse firsthand. However, the point that he says it with “sincerity” illustrates how his lack of concern isn’t an act but his authentic reaction. Keera realizes that everything she’s learned about Vince from his past is true—he doesn’t apologize or take accountability for his actions.

“Keera thought of her chess game against Patsy, about his king, who had nowhere left to run. LaRussa, too, was running out of squares to which he could retreat, but unlike Patsy, when cornered, LaRussa wouldn’t resign. He wouldn’t admit defeat. He was not a man of honor. He’d do something drastic—to the bitter end.”

For most of the novel, Keera has used her father’s advice to develop a strategy against Ambrose and as a way to approach the courtroom. Here, she shifts that perspective, focusing it now on Vince. She uses her chess skills to size up her opponent, and from there, she can anticipate his strategy and moves. She receives validation of her assessment when she finds Vince dead on Lisa’s floor, as Keera knew that going after Lisa was his next characteristic move.