The Heyward Shepherd Conspiracy, by Map V. Ryan - Tapa blanda

Amidst the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, the televised O.J. Simpson murder trial, and the Million Man March, Liam McNaughton, a young, lovelorn lawyer, is mysteriously appointed to represent an indigent black man charged with breaking into a Washington D.C. Catholic school. Liam is the ultimate slacker lawyer - he dreams of quixotic Supreme Court challenges and CNN interviews, but he's never tried a case. Though the rather routine Unlawful Entry charge is only a misdemeanor, Liam's client has eight years of back-up time hanging over his head resulting from an earlier conviction for a heinous crime. And as the trial begins before an all-white jury, Liam comes to realize that he himself has become an unwitting cog in a conspiracy to trigger a bloody civil war. "The Heyward Shepherd Conspiracy, by Map V. Ryan" is told through various dialogue-heavy narratives, including letters, memoranda, court orders, police reports, and a transcript of a trial, all of which allows the book's ensemble of characters to each explain in their own words their respective roles in the diabolical plot: Annie Fairbrother, the veteran prosecutor whose high-risk pregnancy tests her resolve in sending a baby killer back to prison; De La Suggs, a diminutive hit-man afflicted by AIDS and a busy schedule; James McCoy, a closeted police officer who believes, somewhat messianically, that he has supernatural investigative powers; and the mysterious Captain - a pot-smoking, one-armed U.S. Marshal with a penchant for Civil War trivia. Taut to the last page, "The Heyward Shepherd Conspiracy" ends as it begins - with a volcanic explosion of ladybugs, the shimmering Curtain of Life - a visual testament to the frightening ardor of real life anti-abortion terrorists like Paul Hill and Eric Rudolph who picture themselves as modern day John Browns.