Cette série plonge les lecteurs dans le monde brut d'un avocat déterminé, mais souvent en difficulté, naviguant dans les complexités de la justice au Texas des années 1980. Chaque histoire se déroule sur fond de changements sociaux et politiques importants, révélant un protagoniste au passé d'activiste désormais impliqué dans des affaires dangereuses. De la découverte d'actes répréhensibles d'entreprises liés à des crimes environnementaux à la défense des marginalisés contre des intérêts puissants, la série explore constamment les thèmes de la corruption, des tensions raciales et de la lutte pour la vérité. Les lecteurs sont entraînés dans des intrigues pleines de suspense où l'ambiguïté morale et les enjeux élevés sont constants.
On a dark night, out on the Houston bayou to celebrate his wife's birthday, Jay Porter hears a scream. Saving a distressed woman from drowning, he opens a Pandora's Box. Not the lawyer he set out to be, Jay long ago made peace with his radical youth, tucked away his darkest sins and resolved to make a fresh start.
It's 1996, Bill Clinton has just been re-elected and in Houston a mayoral election is looming. As usual the campaign focuses on Pleasantville - the African-American neighbourhood of the city that has swung almost every race since it was founded to house a growing black middle class in 1949.Axel Hathorne, former chief of police and the son of Pleasantville's founding father Sam Hathorne, was the clear favourite, all set to become Houston's first black mayor. But his lead is slipping thanks to a late entrant into the race - Sandy Wolcott, a defence attorney riding high on the success of a high-profile murder trial.And then, just as the competition intensifies, a girl goes missing, apparently while canvassing for Axel. And when her body is found, Axel's nephew is charged with her murder.Sam is determined that Jay Porter defends his grandson. And even though Jay is tired of wading through other people's problems, he suddenly finds himself trying his first murder case, a trial that threatens to blow the entire community wide open, and reveal the lengths that those with power are willing to go to hold onto it.
"Locke reintroduces us to environmental lawyer Jay Porter (her Black Water Rising protagonist), who takes one last case on the behalf of the community of Pleasantville in this new thriller--only to become embroiled in its shadowy politics, a disturbing education in how far those in power are willing to go to win"--