A young attorney is defending her client in a racially charged felony case—but in a town of old money and hidden secrets, her first trial may be her last in this #1 New York Times bestselling legal thriller. Ruby Bozarth, a newcomer to Rosedale, Mississippi, is also fresh to the State Bar—and to the docket of Circuit Judge Baylor, who taps Ruby as defense counsel. The murder of a woman from one of the town's oldest families has Rosedale's upper crust howling for blood, and the prosecutor is counting on Ruby's inexperience to help him deliver a swift conviction. Ruby's client is a college football star who has returned home after a career-ending injury, and she is determined to build a defense that will stick. She finds help in unexpected quarters from Suzanne, a hard-charging attorney armed to the teeth, and Shorty, a diner cook who knows more than he lets on. Ruby never belonged to the country club set, but once she nearly married into it. As news breaks of a second murder, Ruby's ex-fiancé shows up on her doorstep—a Southern gentleman in need of a savior. As lurid, intertwining investigations unfold, no one in Rosedale can be trusted, especially the twelve men and women impaneled on the jury. They may be hiding the most incendiary secret of all.

From James Patterson, the world's #1 bestselling a young lawyer takes on the judge who is destroying her hometown—and ends up in jail herself. In picture-perfect Erva, Alabama, the most serious crimes are misdemeanors. Speeding tickets. Shoplifting. Contempt of court. Then why is the jail so crowded? And why are so few prisoners released? There’s only one place to learn the truth behind these incriminating secrets. Sometimes the best education a lawyer can get is a short stretch of hard time.