Penguin Readers Level 4 The Client (RLA)

Plot

This is the story of eleven-year-old Mark Sway, who, as the novel opens, witnesses the bizarre suicide of a New Orleans attorney. Just before he dies, the lawyer tells Mark a deadly secret concerning the recent murder of a Louisiana Senator, whose accused killer, Mafia thug Barry Muldanno, is about to go to trial. The police, the federal prosecutor and the FBI pressure Mark to tell them the attorney's last words, but he knows that with the mob watching his every move, revealing his secret will almost surely get him killed. So Mark, streetwise and old beyond his years, hires a lawyer: Reggie Love, a fifty-two-year-old divorcee who's been through more than anyone could imagine and survived, basically, because she's tough. And feisty. And loves helping kids overlooked or abused by the system. But when Mark's life is threatened, and Reggie discovers her office has been bugged, and even the Juvenile Court judge says Mark has no choice but to talk, she realizes that this time she's in way over her head. But then Mark comes up with a plan... a crazy plan, in Reggie's opinion, but it's their only hope.