Criminal defense attorney Erin McCabe works in an office located in a second-floor turret of a Victorian home in Cranford. She's been referred to the biggest case of her career: defending a 19-year-old prostitute accused of fatally stabbing the son of a powerful New Jersey senator in a rundown motel near Atlantic City.

It's a high-profile case that she's been assigned in part because, like her client, McCabe is a transgender woman. Both are characters in Robyn Gigl's first legal thriller, By Way of Sorrow, which will be published next year.

Gigl, a partner at GluckWalrath in Freehold, said she always wanted to write fiction, but had never considered pursuing it professionally. When she began writing several years ago, much had changed in her life. Having been married, had children and built a 40-year career in law, in 2009 Gigl transitioned to live in accordance with her gender identity. Since that time, she served as chair of the New Jersey State Bar Association's LGBT Rights Section and often speaks on employment law issues for LGBT individuals and cultural competency issues.