Description de l’éditeur
'Patterson has the rare gift of enthralling as he informs' Mark Lawson, Guardian
In a novel of international intrigue, an American lawyer, Damon Pierce, attempts to save Bobby Okari, the West African leader of a protest movement, from execution by the country’s corrupt and autocratic leader. Pierce is in a race against time, and as the complex trial—involving terrorism and the geopolitics of oil, missing witnesses and evidence, and the whims of a lawless country—unfolds, bodies fall and fates dangle.
Complicating matters further is Okari’s wife, Marissa Brand, with whom Pierce had a relationship years before that he’s never quite forgotten; she, in fact, persuaded him to take the case in the first place, and it is who she plays a crucial role in the eventual outcome of this taut and atmospheric novel.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This stellar legal thriller from bestseller Patterson (Exile) both informs and entertains. On the eve of getting a divorce, Damon Pierce, a 40-year-old partner in a huge San Francisco, Calif., law firm, who specializes in international litigation, e-mails Marissa Brand, a woman he was once in love with in college, to update her on his life. Marissa is married to Bobby Okari, a firebrand reformer whose Nigeria-like country, Luandia, is awash in oil. With these riches come the usual scenarios: ecological disasters, a brutal dictator with murderous henchmen, a rapacious foreign oil company and an oppressed populace. After everyone in Okari's village is slaughtered, Bobby is arrested for the lynching of three oil workers. Damon, because he's a good man and because he's still in love with Marissa, signs on to defend Bobby from the bogus charge. Patterson has exerted all his considerable skill in creating a nightmare atmosphere that will cling to readers long after the last page is turned. Author tour.
