Shannon Skloss
Audio By Carbonatix
A new crime thriller takes readers on a race against time to track down a serial killer haunting Dallas’ streets.
Author Paul Coggins, a former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, leverages his up-close-and-professional experience with the judicial system to drive Chasing the Chameleon, the third installment of the Cash McCahill series. The book was released on March 3 and is available at Interabang Books.
The action opens with fiercely loyal defense lawyer Cash McCahill standing outside the Dallas Public Library amid an identity crisis. On the heels of a clash with a drug cartel in book two, Cash dons a surgically altered face to complement a new alias. He’s lying low in the role of grandfather to Tina, a transgender woman who overcame homelessness to become a tenacious paralegal.
McCahill is on high alert when a serial killer begins targeting trans women in Dallas with intensifying cruelty. Chasing the Chameleon follows his effort to find the killer and protect Tina as she rallies the community and works with the police to solve the murders. Envision Deep Ellum, Uptown and Oak Lawn as the backdrop for scenes with overzealous protestors and an ambivalent police force. During the investigation, McCahill encounters colleagues from his firm who inspire his protective instincts.
“One of the keys to Cash is not only is he good in the courtroom, but he’s got this firm that is sort of the firm of broken toys,” says Coggins.
Courtesy of Paul Coggins
The author, 74, fills the pages of his novel with a range of identities, creating relatable characters for every reader.
“[Cash has] an assistant that’s been with him for 20 years, who may or may not be in the country legally,” Coggins says. “He’s got this old partner who’s definitely patterned after several lawyers I know that were great as lawyers, and probably disasters everywhere else. And then he’s got this paralegal who’s a trans woman, so his firm is this self-contained unit of inclusivity, basically.”
McCahill’s firm, Coggins says, is always positioned as the “underdog going up against Goliath.” He says the story will resonate with fans of esteemed crime writers such as Michael Connelly, Erle Stanley Gardner and John Grisham Jr. But still, Coggins lends Chasing the Chameleon a dose of realism, as many of the small details and characters (such as Tina) are derived from actual encounters on the job.
“I knew when I wanted to become a lawyer, or a writer who practices law, that I wanted to be exposed to as much of the criminal justice system as I possibly could,” Coggins says.
Early in his career, he immersed himself in various corners of the system. He worked in prisons, went on ride-alongs with cops, clerked for a judge, handled pro bono cases and dealt with a variety of family law issues. And of course, there’s his frontline work as the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, the region’s top federal law enforcement officer, from 1993 to 2001.
Nowadays, Coggins practices law as a partner at Troutman Pepper Locke LLP, focusing on white-collar crime defense and corporate matters. Although he refrains from writing firsthand accounts of cases for the sake of confidentiality, his career fuels his fictional endeavors.
“I couldn’t conceive of just doing one without the other. I think if I’d gotten too successful as a writer too soon, I might have dropped law and missed all the fun I’ve had as a lawyer,” Coggins says.
Still, the longtime lawyer says he has more Cash McCahill stories in the pipeline.
“The only time I’m not writing is when I’m in trial, because trial is all-consuming,” he says. “A law professor of mine told me one time: [like writing], 99% of being a lawyer is picking the right word at the right time.”
