Trial

A thrilling adventure into the real world of criminal law, a rich and serious novel that deals with murder, the morality of justice and the perils of love. Clifford Irving's Trial sets a new standard for courtroom fiction. Warren Blackburn, Texas defense lawyer, former star on the rise, has returned to practice after a year's disgrace for perjury on behalf of a client. His marriage to a TV anchorwoman is crumbling: he ekes out a living doing run-of-the-mill court-appointed cases, such as that of Hector Quintana, a homeless illegal alien accused of murdering a Vietnamese for his wallet. But then, suddenly, Houston's most high-profile murder case falls into Warren's lap. The defendant is Johnnie Faye Boudreau, erstwhile beauty queen and brazen owner of a topless night club, who shot her multimillionaire doctor lover - she claims - in self defense. Warren things his life is coming together again... but as he struggles to prepare both cases for trial, he begins to have the sickening sense that the two may somehow be connected. When he discovers the shocking truth, he also learns that as a lawyer he can do nothing about it without forfeiting his career and sacrificing the life of one of his clients. Arrayed against him are a hanging judge, an obsessed prosecutor, a faithless wife, a vanished witness, a smiling murderer with no conscience. And Warren himself is on trial, as lawyer and man of honor, as husband and aspiring lover. In a gripping series of events that culminates in two dramatic trials - trials replete with masterful cross-examination - Warren risks everything in a daring effort to wrest justice from the complexity and absurdity of the law. Clifford Irving was born in New York, educated at Cornell and in Europe, and now lives in the mountains of Mexico with his wife, writer Maureen Earl.