Between Black and White

Secrets and lies have always been part of everyday life in Pulaski, Tenn., a town now trying hard to live down its notoriety as the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan. The action of Bailey's solid second McMurtrie and Drake legal thriller (after 2014's The Professor) begins in 1966, when five-year-old Bocephus Haynes sees his father lynched by a KKK mob. At 18, Bo leaves Pulaski, bound for university and eventually law school. He later returns to town with one goal: to make Andy Walton, former grand master of the local KKK, pay for his crimes. In 2011, Walton is found set ablaze and hanging from the tree on which Bo's father was hanged, and it doesn't take the local authorities long to arrest Bo. Devastating evidence keeps stacking up against him; only his lawyers, retired law professor Tom McMurtrie and Tom's law partner Rick Drake, believe that their client is being framed. The plot provides enough twists and surprises to keep readers turning the pages. Agent: Liza Fleissig, Liza Royce Agency. (Mar.)