The Defendant's Father: A Legal Thriller

by John Ellsworth

Overview

A killer in the guest room.

When Michael Gresham and his wife offer to help their priest, life takes a dark turn. The holy man’s has a son, illegitimate of course, and he’s on a first degree murder charge.

It’s time for Gresham to step up, and this time it includes having the boy in their home.

Neither he or his wife were prepared for what happened next

From million-seller John Ellsworth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781036704544
Publisher:	Vinci Books Ltd
Publication date:	12/02/2025
Series:	Michael Gresham Thrillers , #2
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

John graduated from college with a double degree in accounting and English. He then taught high school English for two years before enrolling at Saint Louis UniversitySchool of Law. Three years later, he took the Arizona Bar Exam, where John scored third out of 233 candidates, received his law license, and proceeded to the courts, where he spent 30 years defending and prosecuting. John attended the University of Oregon's creative writing program and finished first in his class.

In 1996 John became ill, and was forced to retire from law. The State of California found him to be severely disabled and propelled him to the front of its rehab line, essentially asking what he would like to study or learn to support himself.

John said he would like to study computers, thinking the job could be done from a wheelchair. Several months later, John had taken and passed four Microsoft exams to become a certified software engineer. Diploma in hand, John drove a mile to the Intel Corporation and asked for an interview. There were two: a personal interview and a tech interview. Two weeks later, John was hired and tasked with designing and building computer software capable of replicating the screens used by Intel workers in chip production screens of the enormous corporation. Soon, he was noticed for his re-designs of many of the systems and was eventually approached and told he was going on the road to troubleshoot Intel emplacements around the world. Which John did. This morphed into dealing with software languages and datatypes that normally didn’t mix.

 

After marrying and wanting to settle in one place, John returned to law.

In 2014 John retired from law and immediately set about writing a lawyer novel about a young attorney named Thaddeus Murfee. Thirty-eight books and eight years later, John still pounds the keyboard for a few hours a day and consults with various customers on secret tech issues.

Today John lives in the San Juan Islands of Washington State. Sailing, scuba diving, sailplaning and gardening are some of John's happy pursuits when not writing his books. So far, John has also visited 94 countries around the world and says he'll be happy when he hits 100. John's advice for young writers: "Write."