Trail of the Giant

What goes on behind the military's closed doors? As current events have shown, there is much to which the civilian public is not privy: policies and policymakers, scandals and poor decisions, as well as the noble and the heroic. Trail of the Giant opens the door further with a heartrending military drama whose protagonist faces the most terrible of moral dilemmas.

Lieutenant Ryan Slayne is the rising star of the Navy's Judge Advocate General's Corps. His courtroom brilliance, family connections, and recruiting-poster looks have him destined to become the Navy's top lawyer. A passionate crusader for abused children, Ryan is called upon to prosecute the court-martial of Petty Officer Kevan Johnson, himself a stellar sailor, who is suspected of hideously torturing his own infant daughter.

Ryan's opponent is George Dudzik, a high-priced civilian defense lawyer with political ambition and utter disdain for anyone in uniform. He knows he must win the case at all costs, for reasons far beyond his own personal agenda.

But as the case evolves from abuse to murder, Ryan discovers he is fighting the most formidable adversary imaginable--himself--and faces a choice that will destroy him or his career.

Based on a real Navy court-martial, and peopled with unforgettable characters, Trail of the Giant takes us deep into the military justice system, to a cold forgotten grave, and into the hidden recesses of the human heart. A poignant and timely indictment of military policy, it reveals the struggle between the facade we present to the world and who we really are, and forces us to consider why we make it so difficult to love.