Decision

"Crudely effective melodrama—as two [Supreme Court] Justices . . . consider the death penalty . . . of the man who killed/maimed their daughters." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

 

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Advise and Consent, a gripping novel about the deterioration of the criminal justice system and the mysterious, powerful body at its core—the Supreme Court of the United States.

 

Earle Holgren—murderer, terrorist, lost soul—is at the center of a vortex. On trial for a bombing at a nuclear power plant in South Carolina that destroyed innocent lives, Holgren is facing the death penalty.  The  case works its way through the state courts, all the way to the halls of the Supreme Court—and for many of the players, the call for justice is all too personal. From the two Justices of the Supreme Court whose children were victims, to the Attorney General of South Carolina who sees the compelling, controversial trial as an opportunity for demagoguery that might pave his path to the White House, to the idealistic defense lawyer who seeks to save a man she knows to be a psychopathic killer, Decision is a sweeping tale from Allen Drury, the New York Times–bestselling master of spellbinding political fiction.