Justice for None - Tapa dura

In their second novel, Gene Hackman and Daniel Lenihan bring to life the harsh plains and smouldering courtrooms of the Midwest: the small town of Vermilion, Illinois, on the brink of the Great Depression. Boyd Carter is a troubled World War I veteran on the run from the law, suspected of murdering his estranged wife and her lover. Only a female reporter for the Chicago Tribune and the head of a sanitarium for veterans are not convinced of Boyd's guilt. Boyd joins forces with another wrongly accused man, an African-American, and the two begin to face their shadowed pasts while fighting against the odds of justice.

1929, Vermilion, Illinois. A prosperous small town just before the Depression.

On the fringe of polite society is Boyd Calvin, a World War I veteran still haunted by his experiences and unable to find a place for himself. Estranged from his once-loving wife, he drives a trolley and lives hand-to-mouth in a flophouse. When Boyd stumbles upon the scene of his wife's brutal killing, he loses his nerve and runs, only to be captured and jailed for double murder.

In prison, he meets and befriends George, a black convict accused of raping a white woman. Narrowly escaping a crowd's attempt to lynch them, the men flee for their lives, hiding together before making their way to the anonymity of Chicago and day labor paid in cash. Boyd cannot endure the fugitive's underworld and returns to Vermilion, surrendering to his fate. Yet his supporters - a woman from his long-dead mother's youth, a Chicago Tribune reporter, and his aging but still formidable attorney - continue to believe in his innocence, and convince Boyd to fight for the justice that has eluded him. As the country stumbles toward collapse, a dramatic trial begins in the stifling county courtroom, in which Boyd's war record might well prove to be his undoing.

A suspenseful novel, filled with twists and turns and an utterly surprising ending, Justice for None captures perfectly the Depression era Midwest in which Gene Hackman was raised -the grain silos, slaughterhouses, bars, barbershops and newspaper offices of small town and city life. It also explores issues of race, class, truth, and the human consequences of war, with a vivid cast of characters whose lives intersect in unexpected ways.

"Absorbing...with all the moral complexities, last-minute revelations, and gravel-pounding histrionics that the genre requires...recalls classic American courtroom thrillers from To Kill a Mockingbird to Intruder in the Dust. Great small-town period detail."
--Kirkus Reviews