The Jury was ready. After forty-two hours of deliberationss that followed seventy-one days of trial that included 530 hours of testimony from four dozen witness, and after a lifetime of sitting silenty as the lawyers haggeld and the judge lectured and the spectators watched like hawks for telltale signs, the Jury was ready.

Politics has always been a dirty game. Now justice is, too.

In a crowded courtroom in Mississipi, a jury returns a shocking verdict against a chemical company accused of dumping toxic waste into a small towns water supply, causing the worst cancer cluster in history. The company appeals to the Mississippi Supreme Court, whose nine justices will one day either approve the verdict or reverse it.

Who are the nine? How will they vote? Can one be replaced before the case is ultimately decided? The chemical company is owned by a Wall Street predator named Carl Trudeau, and Mr. Trudeau is convinced the Court is not friendly enough. With judicial elections looming, he decides to try to purchase himself a seat on the Court. The cost is a few million dollars, a drop in the bucket for a billionaire like Mr. Trudeau. Through an intricate web of conspiracy and deceit, his political operatives recruit a young, unsuspecting candidate. They finance him, manipulate him, market him, and mold him into a potential Supreme Court justice. Their Supreme Court justice.

The Appeal is a powerful, timely, and shocking story of political and legal intrigue, a story that will leave readers unable to think about our electoral process or judicial system in quite the same way ever aga