In Defense of Good Women

A Novel

Marilyn J. Zimmerman

• Publisher: SparkPress
• eBook ISBN:
  9781684633197
• Year: 2025

This debut novel shines a light on the dark subject of infanticide when a successful female criminal defense lawyer is ordered to defend a seventeen-year-old minister’s daughter charged with murder in the drowning death of her newborn child. 

In Defense of Good Women is the story of Victoria Stephens, a successful, hard-nosed criminal defense attorney appointed by the court to represent a seventeen-year-old minister’s daughter charged with murder in the drowning death of her newborn child. Victoria faces a hostile community, a salivating press, an uncooperative client, but most of all, a nagging intuition that she should not be handling this case. Forced to delve into the psychology of neonaticide as she searches for a defense, Victoria discovers a link between this case and her own past which, once uncovered, leads her beyond the boundaries of not just her profession, but the law.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• One
• Two
• Three
• Four
• Five
• Six
• Seven
• Eight
• Nine
• Ten
• Eleven
• Twelve
• Thirteen
• Fourteen
• Fifteen
• Sixteen
• Seventeen
• Eighteen
• Nineteen
• Twenty
• Twenty-One
• Twenty-Two
• Twenty-Three
• Twenty-Four
• Twenty-Five
• Twenty-Six
• Twenty-Seven
• Twenty-Eight
• Twenty-Nine
• Thirty
• Thirty-One
• Thirty-Two
• Thirty-Three
• Thirty-Four
• Thirty-Five
• Thirty-Six
• Thirty-Seven
• Thirty-Eight
• Thirty-Nine
• Forty
• Forty-One
• Forty-Two
• Forty-Three
• Forty-Four
• Forty-Five
• Forty-Six
• Forty-Seven
• Forty-Eight
• Forty-Nine
• Fifty
• Fifty-One
• Fifty-Two
• Fifty-Three
• Fifty-Four
• Afterword
• For Further Reading
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author