Blood on Their Hands (Paperback or Softback)

South Florida, 2008. The air crackles with racial tension as America stands on the edge of a historic moment. For North African immigrant Alec Monceau, that moment turns violent in an instant. A simple Obama bumper sticker on his car triggers a savage police assault, a false arrest, and a charge designed to bury him. The system is stacked against him. The odds are impossible. And the only attorney willing to take his case is the last man anyone would choose.

Meet Hiram Garbuncle — racist, alcoholic, cheap to the bone, and brilliant in the courtroom. Pressured by his journalist friend to take the case pro bono, Garbuncle reluctantly steps in — a deeply cynical man forced by circumstance to fight for someone he would never have chosen to defend. But as he digs deeper into the evidence against the officers involved, he uncovers something that changes everything. Something so damning that winning in court is no longer his biggest problem. Now both he and his client are fighting for their lives.

Blood on Their Hands is a gripping legal thriller that pulls no punches. At its heart is one of fiction’s most fascinating and contradictory protagonists — a deeply flawed man dragged unwillingly toward redemption by a case he never wanted. Garbuncle’s razor sharp courtroom instincts clash with his own recklessness as a mistrial threatens everything and new dangers close in from every direction. Woven through the tension is a heart-rending love affair that reminds us what is truly worth fighting for.

Set against the charged political atmosphere of Obama’s historic 2008 election, this novel speaks directly to the racial injustice and police brutality conversations happening right now in America. Timely in its themes yet timeless in its storytelling, Blood on Their Hands delivers everything readers of John Grisham and Scott Turow demand — shocking twists, explosive courtroom drama, a love affair that is tragically threatened, dark humor that cuts through the tension, and a deeply human story of redemption that will stay with you long after the final page.

This is not just a legal thriller. This is a mirror held up to America.

Prepare to be gripped, moved, and thoroughly entertained.

Bob Brink is a journalist who worked with several large newspaper organizations and a group of magazines. His byline has been on thousands of news stories, features, and entertainment reviews.

He now is embarked on authoring books. His newest book, the legal thriller Blood on Their Hands, follows Murder in Palm Beach: The Homicide That Never Died, a roman à clef about a real, sensational 1976 murder that made headlines for 15 years, and again made news in recent years with a new development in the case. The book became an Amazon Kindle best seller for 15 consecutive weeks.

His other books are: Breaking Out, a coming-of-age novel, The Way We Were: Short Stories and Tall Tales, and A Tale of Two Continents, a ghost-written memoir. He has completed a book of creative nonfiction about a woman who led an incredible life of crime, and is seeking a publisher. 

Brink has won numerous writing accolades and several awards, including three for Palm Beach Illustrated, which won the Best Written Magazine award from the Florida Magazine Association after he became copy chief and writer.

Besides dabbling in short-story writing over the years, Brink immersed himself in learning to play the clarinet and tenor saxophone. He performed many years with an estimable, 65-piece community symphonic band, and played a few professional big band gigs.

A product of Michigan and Iowa, Brink has a bachelor's degree in English and German from Drake University in Des Moines and completed graduate journalism studies at the University of Iowa.