Naked Justice - Hardcover

Bernhardt, William

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 034538685X ISBN 13: 9780345386854

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1997

Synopsis

William Bernhardt, the attorney-turned-writer who burst on the literary scene with Primary Justice, is back with the most suspenseful, most entertaining, most surprising novel of his career.
Wallace Barrett was a college football hero who went on to become mayor of Tulsa--the city's first black mayor, in fact. But when Barrett's wife and two young daughters are found gruesomely murdered, no one doubts for an instant that he's guilty. The mayor, after all, was seen splattered with blood and fleeing his house immediately after the crime. The entire country watched on television as Barrett sped away from the police and smashed his car into a brick wall.
With evidence like this, it's going to take one hell of a lawyer to get Wallace Barrett off. That's why Barrett hires Ben Kincaid. Kincaid may not be the slickest attorney in Tulsa, but as he has proven time and again, he's got a knack for pulling off the impossible.
Impossible never looked so tough. Kincaid anticipated that the trial was going to be an uphill fight all the way--but he wasn't bargaining on outright disaster. The media seem obsessed with the case, as crack prosecutor Jack Bullock, Kincaid's former partner and now his sworn enemy, brings in a parade of expert witnesses--a DNA analyst, a blood expert, a medical examiner--all of whom establish beyond a doubt that Barrett was present at the crime scene. Then Bullock clinches the case by springing a surprise witness with particularly damning testimony. Ben Kincaid knows it's going to take a miracle to save this trial. A miracle that can happen only if he puts Wallace Barrett on the stand. . . .
As the trial progresses, new revelations explode like firecrackers, sending shock waves through the city's legal and political establishment. And even as the trial draws to a close, Ben uncovers shocking secrets that precipitously tilt the scales of justice. Smart, stylish and engrossing from first page to last, Naked Justice is a virtuoso performance by an absolute master of his art.

About this title

About the Author

William Bernhardt made his debut as a novelist with Primary Justice, a bestseller that launched what Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine called "one of the best new series going.  Bernhardt's subsequent novels include Blind Justice, Deadly Justice, Perfect Justice (which won the Oklahoma Book Award), Cruel Justice, and Double Jeopardy.

As an attorney, William Bernhardt has received several awards for his public service, and in 1993 he was named one of the top twenty-five young lawyers in the nation. He lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with his wife, Kirsten, and their children, Harry and Alice.
From the Paperback edition.

From Kirkus Reviews

Hangdog Tulsa lawyer Ben Kincaid (Cruel Justice, 1996, etc.) is stuck with another hopeless case--a mayor who allegedly killed his wife and daughters. How's this for an original opening? Handsome, magnetic Wallace Barrett, a former football player turned politician, has a public argument with his wife over their two young girls; hours later, a neighbor who's heard cries from his house sees Barrett bolting the scene, leading the police on a dramatic high-speed chase until he crashes his car into a three-count indictment. Faster than you can say O.J., Barrett's retained feckless Ben, whom he's convinced is on the likely trial judge's good books. Barrett figures he'll need all the help he can get, because his late wife's sister, buff exercise counselor Cynthia Taylor, is already peddling a book about him larded with allegations of domestic abuse, and the D.A.'s office, headed by Ben's nemesis Jack Bullock, has stopped looking for another suspect. Meantime, Ben, who's been struggling to take care of the apathetic nephew his decamped sister's parked with him, keeps flashing back to painful memories of his own late father's indictment for murder. He's being sued by a TV station for smashing a camcorder (in defense of Cynthia Taylor, no less). And he's being stalked by someone who keeps threatening him with the tag line ``Sick heart . . . You're next.'' Will Ben's investigator be able to identify the suspicious figure spotted taking money from the sleazy acting mayor? Will Barrett take the stand in his own defense? Will Ben, like Lt. Columbo, eventually realize what most readers will have seen from the beginning? Will all the evidence finally come together with a single satisfying snap? Yes, yes, yes, no. Ben turns in a creditable job in the courtroom (and runs a mean five-minute mile), but not even the dream team could pull all the threads of this tangled case together. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 034538685X
• ISBN 13: 9780345386854
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 406