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The Pro Bono Client

Upcoming Release
A standalone psychological legal thriller from Derek Fermin.

Standalone Psychological Legal Thriller

The Pro Bono Client

A burned-out junior associate at a white-shoe firm is forced onto a pro bono defense for a homeless man accused of stabbing a hedge-fund star—only to discover that every attempt to dump the case triggers a “random” tragedy in her life, and her client seems to know intimate details about her past, present, and future.

Status: In Development
Format: Paperback & Ebook
Countdown to release
Apr 21, 2026
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Available wherever books are sold (at release).

Maya Ellison can outwork anyone in her firm—2,200 billables, perfect briefs, sleepless nights. Control is her religion. Then a pro bono assignment lands on her desk: defend a homeless man everyone wants buried, accused of stabbing hedge-fund prince Evan Karr.

The client calls himself Jonah. He’s “homeless on paper,” but his vocabulary is razor-clean… and he knows things Maya has never said out loud. Worse: when Maya tries to withdraw, Jonah warns her what will happen next—small, “random” tragedies that become personal, then catastrophic. In a city built on leverage, Maya has to decide what’s real: a man who shouldn’t know her… or a system staging the world to make him look impossible.

IN DEVELOPMENT

Where to Find My Books

At release, you can find The Pro Bono Client anywhere books are sold. For the cleanest experience, use the links below to view my full catalog on each platform.

What to Expect

A grounded courtroom spine wrapped in an uncanny pressure-cooker. Expect sharp arraignment and suppression beats, discovery games, ethical traps around withdrawal, and a mystery that keeps two truths alive at once: the “impossible” explanation… and the conspiracy that could fully explain it.

White-shoe pressure Procedural realism Uncanny ambiguity Escalating “random” tragedies

Perfect For Readers Who Love

If you like legal thrillers that feel authentic but still mess with your head—where timestamps, metadata, and memory itself become weapons—this one’s built to haunt.

Paranoid suspense Moral gray choices Reality-bend twists High-stakes defense