Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Alex Cross's Trial


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Ben Corbett is a brilliant young lawyer in early-twentieth-century Washington DC. Yet he is a disappointment to his wife and father, who believe he wastes his talents by doing poorly-paid and thankless work helping the poor and downtrodden. One day, out of the blue, he receives a private invitation to the White House. President Theodore Roosevelt has personally selected Ben to help him investigate rumours of lynchings and a re-emergence of the outlawed Ku Klux Klan in Ben's own hometown of Eudora, Mississippi. Ben accepts the mission handed to him and is given the name of a man in Eudora who will help him in this covert operation - the man's name is Abraham Cross, great-uncle of Alex. As Ben delves into the murky depths of racial hatred that hide beneath the surface of this seemingly sleepy Southern town, people become suspicious of what he is trying to do, and make it very clear to Ben what he is risking if he continues. Ben must decide if he is willing to lose old friends, his family, maybe even his life, for the cause he believes in. In his quest to bring about justice for the tortured and tormented black community of Eudora, Ben must take on the biggest, most difficult, and most dangerous trial of his life. But can one man fight an entire town, an entire state that is stuck in the past and willing to go to any lengths to halt change and the coming of a future that they desperately fear?

Alex Cross's Trial is unlike any other Alex Cross book you will read. Set back in early 1900's at the end of slavery, Ben Corbett is a young, energetic lawyer in Washington, DC who takes on the cases of the those who are poor and unfortunate. He has beautiful twin daughters and a wife who is unhappy with his lack of ambition. This was not the lifestyle she envisioned for her and her family and tells him that she's had enough and she'll be leaving him.

One day Ben gets called to the White House to meet with President Teddy Roosevelt. He can't begin to imagine what the President wants to meet with him about. The President has a special assignment for Ben. He wants him to go back to Eudora, Mississippi, his hometown, where a rash of lynching's has been occurring as well as the what appears to be the re-emergence of the Ku Klux Klan and to report his findings back. He will be setting Ben up with a man all to familiar with the horrific happenings ~ Abraham Cross and his grand daughter Moody.

While in Eudora Ben hopes that his time away will give his wife time to think and hopefully change her mind. When Ben arrives in Eudora he goes to visit his father. A man who is as spiteful as he is cold hearted. After getting that out of the way, Ben checks into a local bed and breakfast and sets out to meet with Abraham. When he arrives at Abraham's home he meets his granddaughter/protector Moody. She is hesitant to let the "white man" into her home, but when her grandfather explains why he is here, she reluctantly lets him in. Abraham begins to take Ben around and he is horrified by what he sees. Including the hanging body of a man who has just been lynched. Ben prepares a report and sends a wire to the White House explaining what he's discovered. While waiting to hear back, Ben runs into some old friends. Friends he had been close with and he had missed. Friends that were friends until they turned on him. Friends that will stop at nothing, even potentially lynching him, to get him to back off and leave town. Unfortuantely for them, Ben won't back down.

All of this leads up to one night of extreme violence that will have Ben fighting the biggest, toughest case of his life. One that just happens to his cold hearted father presiding over. Ben knows that he and his co-counsel are fighting an uphill battle, but they refuse to give up trying to get justice.

Alex Cross's Trial is not your typical James Patterson Alex Cross book. It has a different perspective that makes the reader now see all of the books in this series in a new light. The "author" of the Alex Cross series, is not James Patterson, but Alex Cross himsef. In the preface he (Alex Cross) explains that while writing his last novel (Cross Country) about his chase of the Tiger he would frequently return to one of his favorite stories that Nana Mama would tell him about their family history. And he figured that now was the perfect time to tell the story. I really enjoyed this book. It brought me back to a place in history that defined the world today. It was full of passion and deceit and one man's quest to change the world



Release date: August 24th

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