Keely Bennett returns home one evening to find her husband, Richard Bennett, has committed suicide. Her young son, Dylan, found his father dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Dylan and Keely are traumatized by this event.

Years later, Keely marries attorney Mark Weaver. Mark was a childhood friend of her first husband and helped Keely get an insurance payment, even though Richard committed suicide. Mark broke his engagement to another woman so he could be with Keely.

So Keely is happy again and Mark is happy with his family - he adores their baby daughter, Abby. The Weavers own a beautiful home with a pool - even though Mark can't swim and is terrified of water.

Although adopted by a wonderful couple, Mark never got over the boating accident that took his parents from him. So for the sake of Mark and Abby, Keely is careful to always keep the gate to the pool locked. Sometimes Dylan is not so careful.

Dylan is now fourteen and not happy. Mark tries, but Dylan misses his father and resents Mark trying to take his place. Mark bought Dylan a very expensive bike and Keely is livid when she discovers Dylan sold it to a friend. Keely takes Dylan to recover the bike and then leaves him to search for an anniversary gift for Mark. When Keely returns home, medics are all over her yard and Keely can barely breath when they tell her Mark is dead and that he most likely drowned in their pool while saving their baby daughter.

Keely's children are all that keep her going. So when the police show up at her door asking questions about Dylan's whereabouts on the evening of Mark's death, Keely is irate.

However, the police refuse to back down. The District Attorney is Mark's former fiancée and she thinks Mark 's death was anything but an accident.

Keely knows her son; she's willing to believe he might have been careless, but not that he's a killer. To save him, Keely is going to have to believe in him and to find out everything that happened the night Mark died. And she's going to discover more than she bargained for about the men she loved, married and lost.

Not Guilty by Patricia McDonald is a terrific page-turner that deserves a place in your beach bag this summer. Nonstop action and a lighting-can-strike-twice story line make this book a winner.

--Judith Flavell