At three-oh-six in the morning, a federal magistrate judge let himself into the chief judge's chambers with a key he was not supposed to have. He stayed nineteen minutes. He left with a sealed grand jury memo about his own father. It is on camera. There is no defense.
Sloane Korva is appointed two days later. The independent counsel is Cassia Brock, the best contempt prosecutor in the country. The trial is set for September. The chief judge wants this matter closed before the next term opens.
But Hugo Frelinghuysen's father is the regional federal prosecutor for the Southern District of Ohio. His daughter Olive is twenty-two and recently came into a great deal of unexplained money. His wife Cordelia keeps the spare key to the chief judge's chambers in the satin band of a hat in her closet.
Hugo will admit he took the memo. He will not say why. The version of the truth that lets him sleep at night is the version that destroys someone he loves.
Sloane builds a defense that is not innocence and is not denial. Working with second-chair Adelaide Park and investigator Renny Kowal, she makes a careful, dangerous suggestion: that the man on the camera was not protecting himself, not protecting his father, and not protecting any institution at all. The trial will end one of two ways. Either Hugo Frelinghuysen goes to prison for a year, or his daughter does.
Contemplation of Court is the second book in the Justice Files, the Cleveland federal-defender series following Sloane Korva and the team that takes the cases the system insists are already decided.
Genre: Thriller
Sloane Korva is appointed two days later. The independent counsel is Cassia Brock, the best contempt prosecutor in the country. The trial is set for September. The chief judge wants this matter closed before the next term opens.
But Hugo Frelinghuysen's father is the regional federal prosecutor for the Southern District of Ohio. His daughter Olive is twenty-two and recently came into a great deal of unexplained money. His wife Cordelia keeps the spare key to the chief judge's chambers in the satin band of a hat in her closet.
Hugo will admit he took the memo. He will not say why. The version of the truth that lets him sleep at night is the version that destroys someone he loves.
Sloane builds a defense that is not innocence and is not denial. Working with second-chair Adelaide Park and investigator Renny Kowal, she makes a careful, dangerous suggestion: that the man on the camera was not protecting himself, not protecting his father, and not protecting any institution at all. The trial will end one of two ways. Either Hugo Frelinghuysen goes to prison for a year, or his daughter does.
Contemplation of Court is the second book in the Justice Files, the Cleveland federal-defender series following Sloane Korva and the team that takes the cases the system insists are already decided.
Genre: Thriller
Used availability for Hadley Thorne's Contempt of Court