Courting Death

Set in the late 1980s, the absorbing third volume of Heald’s Clarkeston Chronicles (after Cotton) follows three bright young lawyers, clerks for a legendary civil rights judge from the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, as they tackle cases that pose moral and legal conundrums, besides revealing the limitations of their power. Arthur Hughes, who’s handling a habeas corpus case on the behalf of Karl Gottlieb, a convicted serial killer who’s seeking to avoid imminent execution, and fellow clerk Phil Garner consider the implications of recommending a stay for Gottlieb. The third clerk, Melanie Wilkerson, becomes intrigued by the secrecy surrounding the death five years earlier of clerk Carolyn Bastaigne, who broke her neck in a fall down a stairwell after working late at the office one night. Melanie investigates this tragedy in her spare time. For all three, their real education is just beginning, and Heald skillfully illuminates the vagaries of crime and punishment in this disquieting look inside the workings of the justice system. (Nov.)