Deze serie dompelt lezers onder in de rauwe wereld van een vastberaden, maar vaak worstelende advocaat die de complexiteit van het rechtssysteem in het Texas van de jaren '80 navigeert. Elk verhaal ontvouwt zich tegen de achtergrond van belangrijke sociale en politieke verschuivingen, en onthult een protagonist met een verleden als activist die nu verwikkeld is in gevaarlijke zaken. Van het ontdekken van zakelijke malversaties die verband houden met milieucriminaliteit tot het verdedigen van gemarginaliseerden tegen machtige belangen, de serie verkent voortdurend thema's als corruptie, raciale spanningen en de strijd om de waarheid. Lezers worden meegezogen in spannende plots waar morele ambiguïteit en hoge inzetten constant aanwezig zijn.
On a dark night, out on the Houston bayou to celebrate his wife's birthday, Jay Porter hears a scream. Saving a distressed woman from drowning, he opens a Pandora's Box. Not the lawyer he set out to be, Jay long ago made peace with his radical youth, tucked away his darkest sins and resolved to make a fresh start.
It's 1996, Bill Clinton has just been re-elected and in Houston a mayoral election is looming. As usual the campaign focuses on Pleasantville - the African-American neighbourhood of the city that has swung almost every race since it was founded to house a growing black middle class in 1949.Axel Hathorne, former chief of police and the son of Pleasantville's founding father Sam Hathorne, was the clear favourite, all set to become Houston's first black mayor. But his lead is slipping thanks to a late entrant into the race - Sandy Wolcott, a defence attorney riding high on the success of a high-profile murder trial.And then, just as the competition intensifies, a girl goes missing, apparently while canvassing for Axel. And when her body is found, Axel's nephew is charged with her murder.Sam is determined that Jay Porter defends his grandson. And even though Jay is tired of wading through other people's problems, he suddenly finds himself trying his first murder case, a trial that threatens to blow the entire community wide open, and reveal the lengths that those with power are willing to go to hold onto it.
"Locke reintroduces us to environmental lawyer Jay Porter (her Black Water Rising protagonist), who takes one last case on the behalf of the community of Pleasantville in this new thriller--only to become embroiled in its shadowy politics, a disturbing education in how far those in power are willing to go to win"--