The jury verdict is the usual culmination of most legal thrillers; not so in this absorbing, thoughtful deliberation from Wachtler (After the Madness: A Judge's Own Prison Memoir), a former chief judge of New York State, and Gould, a former assistant United States attorney. In late 1950s Augusta, Ga., 15-year-old Luke Lipton befriends sullen, hulking T.C. Simmons. As one of the town's few Jewish teens, Luke feels an outcast kinship with alienated, dirt-poor T.C. Forty years later, Luke has become an exalted Wall Street lawyer, and T.C. has done jail time for torching a synagogue. When Luke learns that T.C. has been accused of the brutal killing of a black man, Aaron Boddie, he quits his job and returns to Georgia to defend his old friend. Everyone is intent on getting the death penalty for T.C., including Mayor Will Morgan, who testifies he saw T.C. commit the crime, though T.C. swears it was Will who dragged Boddie into a swamp and set him on fire. Luke's faith in his friend wavers, is restored and dashed again as the twisted story is retold both in court and out. But the authors are concerned more with questions of truth, myth and justice than with a simple solution to the crime, and after the verdict is delivered, it is personal morality that goes on trial, with Luke forced to make an almost impossible decision that will drastically change the lives of everyone concerned. Many readers, after becoming increasingly invested in this cast of compelling characters, will be frustrated at the authors' open-ended conclusion, while others will find the ambiguity bold and thought provoking. (Sept.)
Forecast:Legal thriller readers will find the insider courtroom information fascinating and the story engrossing (and may be intrigued by Wachtler's tabloid past—he was arrested in 1992 for harassing former lover Joy Silverman), but the problematic ending may keep this one from scoring big. The publishing company is betting otherwise with a hefty first printing and fulsome author endorsements by Richard North Patterson, Nelson DeMille and that jacket perennial, Larry King.
