First published 1957
Arthur Winner Jr. considers himself an honorable man. The respected lawyer has built his reputation in Brocton, Pennsylvania, on integrity and sound judgment. But over forty-nine hours in August, Winner discovers that his closest associates have been deceiving him for years. His law partner Julius Penrose reveals financial improprieties that threaten their practice. Winner learns his late partner embezzled trust funds, crimes that Penrose has been covering up. Meanwhile, Winner grapples with his own moral compromises, including his affair with his deceased brother's wife. As clients depend on him and his community looks to him for leadership, Winner must decide whether to expose the truth or become complicit in the deception. The weight of these revelations forces him to examine everything he believed about duty, honor, and the price of maintaining respectability in a world where good people do questionable things.
Genres: fiction, drama, american-fiction, 20th-century, contemporary, legal-thriller
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: moral-dilemma, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Brocton, Pennsylvania
Period: August
570 pages · Paperback · Nabu Press