The Final Case — David Guterson

From the award-winning, best-selling author of Snow Falling on Cedars -- a moving father-son story that is also a taut courtroom drama and a bold examination of privilege, power, and how to live a meaningful life.

A girl dies one late, rainy night a few feet from the back door of her home. The girl, Abeba, was born in Ethiopia. Her adoptive parents, Delvin and Betsy Harvey -- conservative, white fundamentalist Christians -- are charged with her murder.

Royal, a Seattle criminal attorney in the last days of his long career, takes Betsy Harvey's case. An octogenarian without a driver's license, he leans on his son -- the novel's narrator -- as he prepares for trial.

So begins The Final Case, a bracing, astute, and deeply affecting examination of justice and injustice -- and familial love. David Guterson's first courtroom drama since Snow Falling on Cedars, it is his most compelling and heartfelt novel to date.