Synopses & Reviews
With his nine dazzling Ben Kincaid novels, author William Bernhardt has drawn acclaim as a master of the courtroom drama who "throws in just enough plot twists to foil most armchair detectives" (the Associated Press). Now, in Dark Justice, the winner of the Oklahoma Book Award continues to do exceptional justice to the legal thriller.
Suffering from courtroom burnout, Ben Kincaid hopes to leave trials and the tribulations of a lawyer's life behind in Tulsa as he sets out for some much-needed R and R in the picturesque Pacific Northwest. But Ben's blissful getaway becomes a busman's holiday in the small town of Magic Valley, where a pitched battle between the local logging industry and crusading conservationists has led to brutal murder.
Years earlier, professional activist George Zakin was successfully defended against a charge of murder by a fledgling attorney named Ben Kincaid. Now, accused of viciously killing a lumberjack, Zakin is counting on Ben to duplicate that long-ago courtroom coup and save his neck a second time. Ben has no doubt that his client is innocent, but in a town where logging is a way of life, and save-the-trees advocates are branded "eco-terrorists," he knows winning the case will be an uphill fight.
It doesn't help that Ben's opponent is Rebecca Granville "Granny" Adams, a homegrown prosecutor with a reputation for being as ruthless as she is ravishing. With the odds stacked against him, Ben walks into a war zone in the courtroom . . . and a potential killing field in the streets and woods of Magic Valley, an explosive place where allies and enemies are hard to tell apart--and digging for the truth is as good as digging your grave.
Laced with sly wit and loaded with surprising twists, Dark Justice makes another ironclad case for bestselling author William Bernhardt's skills as a master of the brilliantly plotted, stunningly suspenseful legal thriller.
About the Author
William Bernhardt made his debut as a novelist with Primary Justice. His subsequent novels include Blind Justice, Deadly Justice, Perfect Justice--which won the Oklahoma Book Award and led The Vancouver Sun to dub the author "the American equivalent of P. G. Wodehouse or John Mortimer --Double Jeopardy, Cruel Justice, Naked Justice, and Extreme Justice. As an attorney, 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 with his wife, Kirsten, and their children, Harry and Alice.