A Paul Madriani Novel
The Supreme Court is one of our most sacredand secretivepublic institutions. But sometimes secrets can lead to cover-ups with very deadly consequences.
Terry Scarborough is a legal scholar and provocateur who craves headline-making celebrity, but with his latest book he may have gone too far. In it he resurrects forgotten language in the U.S. Constitutionand hints at a missing letter of Thomas Jefferson'sthat threatens to divide the nation.
Then, during a publicity tour, Scarborough is brutally murdered in a San Diego hotel room, and a young man with dark connections is charged. What looks like an open-and-shut case to most people doesn't to defense attorney Paul Madriani. He believes that there is much more to the case and that the defendant is a pawn caught in the middle, being scapegoated by circumstance.
As the trial spirals toward its conclusion, Madriani and his partner, Harry Hinds, race to find the missing Jefferson letterand the secrets it holds about slavery and scandal at the time of our nation's founding and the very reason Scarborough was killed. Madriani's chase takes him from the tension-filled courtroom in California to the trail of a high court justice now suddenly in hiding and lays bare the soaring political stakes for a seat on the highest court, in a country divided, and under the shadow of power.
"Compelling courtroom scenes, which display a sophisticated knowledge of legal trench warfare, compensate for some less-than-credible plot twists. " - Publishers Weekly.
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Steve Martini was born in San Francisco and grew up in the Bay Area and Southern California. An honors graduate of the University of California at Santa Cruz, Martini's first career was in journalism. He worked as a newspaper reporter in Los Angeles and as a correspondent at the California State Capitol in Sacramento, specializing in legal issues, before gaining his law degree from the University of the Pacific's McGeorge School of Law.
In 1974 he entered private law practice in California where he appeared in both state and federal courts. During his law career he worked as a legislative representative for the State Bar of California, served as special counsel to the California Victims of Violent Crimes Program, and was an administrative law judge and supervising hearing ...
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