Rules of Evidence

Call this genre fiction if you like, but Jay Brandon elevates the familiar cops and courtrooms drama with mature insight into the lives of a Black lawyer, the first of his family out of poverty, and a White cop whose affection for the old neighborhood is expressed in terms only a vigilante would understand. Raymond Boudro is the Black lawyer with a client list packed with drug pushers and convenience store robbers. Mike Stennett is the White narcotics cop who doesn't shy from bashing heads and breaking ribs when he can't make a case stick in court. When Stennett is accused of beating a Black man to death, he comes to Boudro to defend him. Boudro deplores this renegade cop's methods but wants to know the truth; taking the case is the only way he'll ever know. The crucible in which these two characters are locked creates all the tension you expect from the genre, but there's much more to savor--authentic lawyer talk to be sure, but it's the finely wrought human side of the two characters that sets this book apart.