Arrested by detectives for murder of the Chief Judge, former judge Nicoletta Kikkra learns there isn’t any problem that can’t be solved out of her recently opened Ratification Hair Salon, Spa & Café. Nicoletta’s cowboy boots and every day is wedding hair spray day sense of humor keeps everyone around her in good spirits even when 12 inexplicable bank accounts totaling 1.2 million dollars are discovered in her name - money that detectives pinpoint as her motive to kill. Nicoletta quickly loses control over her life as a cast of characters, including former court staff and grateful rehabilitated felons, pets included, transplant into her life to ensure she remains a free woman. 

To complicate matters, to the rescue comes entrepreneur ex-husband Dexter Breckenridge, who posts a million dollars in bond money that to him equate ample reason to keep her safe. Dex hires Nicoletta’s ex-boyfriend Hunter Greene, a private investigator, to protect his investment. Throw into the mix her handsome boyfriend, Australian attorney Sebastian Pearce who represents her. The three men who know her best persistently try to solve the murder, always managing to also outshine each other much to her infuriation. 

The trail leads to more murders, high-speed car chases and flying bullets, snakes and suspects - but as she tries to hone-in clues, her home is turning into a bed and breakfast and her hair salon and café into an animal retreat. Nicoletta begins to regain the power she lost with help from two inside female Judges and mysterious notes telling her to follow the money. Finally, she realizes Dark Money and court insiders may not only be behind Chief Judge Warren Donnettelli’s murder, but now they want her dead. 

In All Rise by Rosemarie Aquilina, everyone is in for a wild ride as cars blow up, trash-bin fireworks explode and skunk fumes burst from perfume bottles, and snakes slither in. You’ll want to keep revisiting Nicoletta’s world, the men in her life, and her whacky but all-supportive, all-in friends.