In late 60's Virginia, a Black man is charged with the murder of his employers, a prominent White couple. There's virtually no evidence against him except for being found with the dead couple when the police arrived. His family enlists Jack Lee, a local (White) lawyer with no murder trial experience, to mount a defense. Jack is feeling a little out of his league when some unexpected help shows up - Desiree Dubose, an NAACP lawyer from Chicago. As the trial date draws near, some of the locals are unhappy about Jack defending a Black man and about him working with a Black woman attorney. This is not unexpected. I haven't read Baldacci in awhile. I guess I lost interest in the kind of stuff he was putting out, but when I saw this went a different direction, I knew I had to check it out. There aren't a lot of surprises here, but it's very well done. That shouldn't be a surprise either; Baldacci used to be an attorney and he grew up in the South. I kept forgetting I wasn't reading something written by that other well-known, Southern ex-lawyer, John Grisham. I'm not sure if Baldacci would be flattered by that or not, but this is definitely one of his best.