River Road

Death and the law in a small South Carolina town. It's springtime in 1978 and Elizabeth Chase, a young public defender from Boston, returns to her ancestral home of Weenee, South Carolina, to attend the funeral services for her grandfather. But when the county sheriff pulls a severed head from the bottom of the Weenee River, Elizabeth becomes involved in the most shocking homicide the small town has ever seen. Reluctantly, Elizabeth agrees to defend the African-American man accused of the gruesome murder. It isn't long before she starts to realize that nothing in Weenee-from a new romance to the eccentrics who drink bourbon in the afternoons-is what it seems. Evocatively set in the rural South, this suspenseful and realistic novel draws upon the author's own experiences as a public defense attorney and judge in a small town to probe themes ranging from racial tension and voodoo to drug trafficking and revenge.