"Alex Cross's Trial"

by James Patterson & Richard Dilallo, 2009, 315p, rating=3

(vague spoiler alert!!)
This was an easy and interesting read because it had the feel of the classic book, To Kill A Mockingbird. Then the ending came and I was disappointed. I don't understand what the author wanted me to get out of it. It wasn't necessarily that I didn't like the verdict but the whole Theodore Roosevelt electoral game and leaving it at "You did fine, Ben. You did fine." just didn't cut it for me. OK, come to think of it, maybe my disappointment had a lot to do with the verdict. It was disheartening.

During the early 1900s, as a city lawyer in Washington DC, Ben Corbett took cases that fought against oppression and racism. So when President Roosevelt enlisted him to investigate lynchings in Ben's hometown of Eudora, Mississippi he could not refuse. There he discovers that the onced outlawed KKK over forty years ago still exists. He experiences personal retaliation and have come to be regarded on the side of the blacks. In aid to protect Abraham Cross, a black man, he finds himself in the midst of a crime. A trial finally takes place and a nation awaits its verdict.

As one expects of a story of racial injustice, you will find integrity, ignorance, horrors, courage, compassion, impatience, etc. in the story line. Mr. Patterson did a good job in making these come to light. Moreover, he also gives his character, Ben, a personal consequence and the conflict of saving a marriage comes to play. Yeay, for the ending there!

**My quotables:
"I guess strength doesn't help, if you don't have some brains to go along with it.". pg 47
"Now, Judge, you know as well as I do that outlawing something does not guarantee that it ceases to exist. As a matter of fact, that's one of the best ways to ensure its continuing existence--to forbid it!". pg 124