THE RIBS
In early 2018, Drew Torrens, a family attorney with almost no criminal experience, returns to her hometown to defend her estranged best friend’s husband, who is accused of starving a man to death. Drew knows she isn’t the right person for this case. Not only is she inexperienced in criminal law, but she’ll be defending the man who once weaponized the police against her. Drew wants to win and leave, with the good deed in her pocket and no more obligations to play nice.
But Drew knows better than anyone how long a body can go without. And soon, the case drags her back into everything she desperately wants to run away from: the custody case that broke her, her debilitating relationship with food, and the violent incident that fractured her friendship and kept her away in the first place.
And once Drew understands who the killer is, she realizes she may understand too well. Drew then must choose: the friend who let her down, the client she isn’t sure deserves freedom, or the truth that could ruin both her career and her friendship.
THE RIBS is an 80,000-word upmarket suspense that uses starvation as a lens on what women are made to go without. It will appeal to readers of I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai, The Whispers by Ashley Audrain, and Megan Abbott’s El Dorado Drive.