Fogbound - Tapa dura

Once more, the author of Irreparable Damage combines thrills, vivid characters, and a plot that leaves the reader breathless.

A Lincoln Navigator carries three well-dressed people through the barren New Jersey salt flats. The trip is uncomfortable but necessary. Their target has no phone, certainly no e-mail, and never answers his rare mail. But August Jorgenson is no country bumpkin. Before retiring, he was one of the most famous judges in the country, and only opinions like his fierce opposition to the death penalty kept him from a seat on the Supreme Court.

Now his visitors, from a reality show called Trial TV, have come to enlist his aid. They are excited about an idea they have that promises to strike a serious blow against the death penalty (and boost their ratings past those of Court TV).

The judge agrees to help. But as he digs into the facts of the case he becomes their enemy - an enemy who must be removed as a serious threat to their plans.

Joseph T. Klempner is a former defense attorney and lives in East Chatham, New York.