Brian Dunn accidentally shot his wife while he was cleaning his deer rifle. He remarried, moved from Petoskey to Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and started a new family. Six years later, an ambitious prosecutor hunts him down. The police burst into Brian's house while he's decorating the Christmas tree with his new wife and their five year old daughter. Brian is charged with first degree murder.

Burr Lafayette, the deposed head of a major Detroit law firm is recruited by his lovely, ex-girlfriend to defend Brian. A man at loose ends, Burr prefers dogs, boats, wine and women over a courtroom, but he's a brilliant litigator. He discovers there are more secrets than Brian ever let on, and the case turns out to be more than a murder trial. Just as he about to solve the murder, Burr's own life is in danger.

A legal thriller with larger than life characters and a town too small for its secrets, The Crooked Angel is Anatomy of a Murder and The Thin Man rolled into one.