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Fiction. Thriller. HTML: A Washington, D.C. lawyer and a frequent major media commentator on the Supreme Court, Anthony Franze delivers a high-stakes story of family, power, loss and revenge set within the insular world of the highest court of our country. Among Washington D.C. power players, everyone has secrets they desperately want to keep hidden, including Sean Serrat, a Supreme Court lawyer. Sean transformed his misspent youth into a model adulthood, and now has one of the most respected legal careers in the country. But just as he learns he's on the short list to be nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court, his daughter, Abby, a talented and dedicated law student, goes missing. Abby's lifeless body is soon found in the library of the Supreme Court, and her boyfriend, Malik Montgomery, a law clerk at the high court, is immediately arrested. The ensuing media frenzy leads to allegations that Malik's arrest was racially motivated, sparking a national controversy. While the Serrat family works through their grief, Sean begins to suspect the authorities arrested the wrong person. Delving into the mysteries of his daughter's last days, Sean stumbles over secrets within his own family as well as the lies of some of the most powerful people in the country. People who will stop at nothing to ensure that Sean never exposes the truth..… (more)
User reviews
In this story, Sean Serrat, formerly of the Office of Solicitor General, is on the shortlist to be the next Supreme Court nominee. But Sean’s life is upended when his daughter Abby, a law school student, is found dead in the Supreme Court library, having been brutally murdered. Her boyfriend, Malik Montgomery, is arrested. Malik is a clerk at the Supreme Court and happens to be black (Abby is white), adding racial complications to the case. Although a number of circumstances point to Malik’s guilt, there are just as many that imply Malik was set up. But by whom, and why Abby? Sean can’t escape the feeling that somehow, it has to do with him.
Meanwhile, Sean’s teenaged son Ryan thinks he caused Abby’s death, since Abby was trying to help him get out of a sticky and dangerous situation he wanted to keep his parents from knowing about.
Sean tries to investigate what happened on his own, inadvertently putting the whole family at risk.
Discussion: Franze contributes some of the history of the Supreme Court and of famous cases into his narrative, adding a lot of interest. He also explains a lot about the vetting process for selecting new justices, which is quite fascinating. But some of the villains seem cardboard-ish. The family dynamics, on the other hand, showing how Sean, his wife, and his remaining two children cope with the death of Abby, are quite well done, and there is a good build-up of suspense in the story.
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