Fiction/General
Hardcover
ISBN: 0316167118
$29.95/U.S.
$39.95/CAN
394 pages
6 x 9 1/4
Little, Brown

Paperback (mass market)
ISBN: 0446619140
$9.99/U.S.
$12.99/CAN
400 pages
4-1/8 x 7-1/2
Grand Central Publishing

Welcome to Beach Road
Tom Dunleavy has a one-man law firm in legendary East Hampton. But his job barely keeps him in paper clips. His principal clients make a living serving the rich. The billionaires and megacelebrities swarming the beaches already have lawyers on their payroll.

EXPENSIVE
Then a friend of Tom's is arrested for a triple murder near a movie star's mansion. Tom knows in his gut that Dante Halleyville is innocent. Dante asks him to represent him in what could be the Trial of the Century.

EXCLUSIVE
Tom recruits Manhattan superlawyer Kate Costello to help. She's a tough hire, because Kate is his ex-girlfriend-but she agrees. In their search to find who really executed three locals, Tom orchestrates a series of revelations to expose the killer-and what emerges is staggering.

EXPLOSIVE
The final scenes of Beach Road unveil a truth that will leave readers gasping in shock. Written with the precision that has made James Patterson America's #1 suspense writer, Beach Road is his most thrilling novel ever.

Fiction/General
Hardcover
ISBN: 0316167118
$29.95/U.S.
$39.95/CAN
394 pages
6 x 9 1/4
Little, Brown

Paperback (mass market)
ISBN: 0446619140
$9.99/U.S.
$12.99/CAN
400 pages
4-1/8 x 7-1/2
Grand Central Publishing

Chapter 6

Tom

PARADISE COULDN’T BE too much better than this.

Seagulls are flapping in the breeze, sailboats are bobbing on the waves, and the green rubberized surface is bathed in dazzling sunshine as I dribble the ball upcourt, cut around my brother’s double-wide pick, and snap off a bounce pass to an open Walco under the basket.

Walco is about to lay it in for an easy hoop when one of Dante’s teammates, a tall, wiry kid I will later find out is named Michael Walker, comes flying at him from behind. He blocks the shot and knocks Walco to the court. It’s a hard foul, and completely unnecessary in my opinion. A dirty play.

Now the Kings Highway squad is bringing the ball upcourt, and when one of their players goes up for a little jumper, he gets mugged just as bad by Rochie.

Pretty soon, no one stretched out on the grassy hill beside the court is noticing the flapping seagulls or bobbing sailboats because the informal Saturday-morning game has escalated into a war.

But then a beat-up Honda parks beside the court, and Dante’s pretty seventeen-year-old cousin, Nikki Robinson, steps out in very short cutoffs. When I see the way Feifer checks her out, I know the Montauk townies still have a chance to win this shoot-out by the sea.

Copyright © 2006 by James Patterson