First published 1961
Pierre Goodman stands in a Southern courtroom, his London accent cutting through the humid air as lawyers prepare their questions. He grew up in wealth and privilege, part of a prominent Jewish family across the Atlantic. Now he faces something entirely different: giving testimony about a Ku Klux Klan killing he never witnessed. The prosecutors need his words. The defense wants to discredit him. Pierre must navigate the treacherous waters of American racial violence while grappling with his own distance from the events that brought him here. His testimony could determine justice for the victim, but Pierre knows the gap between what he can say and what actually happened. The courtroom becomes a stage where truth, memory, and moral obligation collide in ways that will force Pierre to confront not just the case at hand, but his own place in a world where violence and privilege intersect in unexpected ways.
Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, mystery, 21st-century, legal-thriller
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Southern, London
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
484 pages · Paperback · Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Content warnings: racism, violence