Levine has a sharp wit and quirky humor, often directed at himself and his fictional characters--all of which are lawyers. His latest creation, Jimmy Payne, is "a nastier wise guy than I've written before."

Payne, who has appropriated the middle name Atticus, is an angry man. His son has been killed by a drunk driver, and Payne is focused on revenge. When he crosses paths with a young boy who's been separated from his mother during an illegal border crossing, Payne is given an opportunity to make a difference.

For the boy and for himself.

In this new series,  Levine has moved into darker terrain than his popular Jake Lassiter series--a second-string pro football player drawn to the law--or the bantering legal couple, Steve Solomon and Victoria Lord.

This is a conscious decision on Levine's part, and he has also chosen to set this story in Southern California rather than the Florida terrain where he felt more familiar.

"This isn't really a story focused on crossing the border," he said. "It's about what's right and what's not. What you'll do for the person you love, or for a stranger. It's about personal redemption and the loss of a child. Also the need for revenge."

The question of right and wrong was something that pushed Levine out of the law and into writing. He plays it for humor when he says, "I was unhappy in the practice (of law). I didn't like the work. I didn't like the clients. I didn't like many of my partners. So I took a vacation to Maui. I was a big wind surfer at the time. The first day I got hurt. The board smacked me in the thigh and I was injured. I had nothing to do so I sat down and started writing as a sort of therapy."

That book, TO SPEAK FOR THE DEAD, written originally on yellow legal pads, became the first Jake Lassiter novel. Levine got the call that Bantam was buying the book while he was trying a case in Key West.

"This was before cell phones, so my agent called the pay phone outside the courtroom. Someone answered and came into the courtroom and told me I had an important call.  Things were a little more relaxed in Key West."

Seven Lassiter books and one stand alone, NINE SCORPIONS, later, Levine found himself at another crossroads. A spec book he'd written about a bookie didn't attract the interest he'd anticipated. He took a left turn and ended up in Hollywood writing scripts for JAG, a long-running television show.

"I'd sold them a couple of scripts," he said, "so when the offer came through to move out there as a writer on the show, I thought, why not. I like new challenges. What they didn't tell me is that no one becomes a television writer at age 50. The CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR heard about me and did a story they called "The Oldest Rookie Writer in Hollywood."

His humor sustained him through the bumps and lumps of writing for television, but he also realized that the novel was the form he preferred. He did four Steve Solomon and Victoria Lord books, and has now taken on the challenge of Jimmy Payne as his protagonist.

While ILLEGAL is a pure thriller, with all the plot twists and less of his trademark humor, it is also a character driven story, and fans of his prior work will not be disappointed in the hard driving Jimmy Payne.      

To read more about ILLEGAL or catch up on some of the thoughtful (and just plain funny) freelance articles Levine finds time to write, check out his Web site at www.paul-levine.com

Carolyn Haines is a 2009 recipient of the Richard Wright Literary Excellence Award. The ninth book in the Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery series, GREEDY BONES, will be released in July by St. Martin's Minotaur.