A Criminal Appeal - Hardcover

Schanker, D.R.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312192533 ISBN 13: 9780312192532

Publisher: Minotaur Books, 1998

Synopsis

When a thirteen-year-old deaf black child is convicted of a murder he did not commit, Nora Lumsey, a recent law school graduate and clerk at the Indiana Court of Appeals, is drawn into the case as she sets out to find the real killer and encounters a world of harsh injustice and high-level cover-up. A first novel. 10,000 first printing.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

esn't always set you free. Sometimes it takes a damn good lawyer.

Big-boned, farm-bred, and fresh out of law school, Nora Lumsey has just landed a great job as an Indiana judge's law clerk. Then the Dexter Hinton case lands in her lap: An elderly white woman dies in a drive-by shooting. Two black kids are in the car. Dexter, ten years old and deaf, confesses. He gets fifty-five years.

Now the boy's distraught grandfather has written an appeal, and Nora's job is to draft the judge's denial. Turn the key and throw Dexter away.

That's her dilemma. The amateur appeal raises the wrong arguments. Nora knows the right ones. She also knows Dexter is innocent, convicted with lies and racism. Legally, she's forbidden to help. Morally, a big-boned woman is born to meddle...and perhaps risk everything for a young boy's life.

From the Back Cover:

"A fast-paced read."
--Mademoiselle

"First novelist Schanker wields a mighty pen...dramatic action and a powerful blend of race, religion, politics, and legal procedure."
--Library Journal

"Nora's harsh, uncompromising voice [is] something new and welcome in the genre."
--Kirkus Reviews

"The writing is superb...Nora is tough, loud, pushy and the perfect antidote for readers overdosed on the blood and guts of noir or the sugary niceness of today's cozies...Add D. R. Schanker to your list of favorite new authors."
--BookLine

"Brilliantly developed...authentic...Nora is one of the genre's best new characters."
--Harriet Klausner

About this edition

• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0312192533
• ISBN 13: 9780312192532
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336