In their second novel, Gene Hackman and Daniel Lenihan bring to life the harsh plains and smouldering courtrooms of the Midwest: the small town of Vermilion, Illinois, on the brink of the Great Depression. Boyd Calvin is a troubled World War I veteran on the run from the law, suspected of murdering his estranged wife and her lover. Only a female reporter for the Chicago Tribune and the head of a sanitarium for veterans are not convinced of Boyd's guilt. Boyd joins forces with another wrongly accused man, an African-American, and the two begin to face their shadowed pasts while fighting against the odds of justice. In their first novel, Wake of the Perdido Star (1999), actor Hackman and coauthor Lenihan combined historical and adventure fiction. In their second collaboration, they mix historical fiction with elements of the murder mystery. As in the previous book, readers must overlook the clumsy prose style ("The sun had climbed to its 9:00 A.M. reserved spot in the sky") in order to appreciate the suspenseful story. Young Boyd Calvin, living in a small town in Illinois in the late 1920s, attempts to put his life and marriage back together after his convalescence in a hospital, where he spent time for mental strain incurred as a doughboy in the Great War. But one night, Boyd's estranged wife is shot dead, and circumstances point to him as the doer of the deed. In jail he gets acquainted with a black man accused of raping a white woman. Add into the equation a woman reporter for a Chicago newspaper who is in town to investigate the murder, and the formula for an exciting yarn springs into place. The authors show a good understanding of locale and time period, and Boyd is portrayed with enough depth to make readers care about him. Brad Hooper Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved 1929, Vermilion, Illinois. A prosperous small town just before the Depression. On the fringe of polite society is Boyd Calvin, a World War I veteran still haunted by his experiences and unable to find a place for himself. Estranged from his once-loving wife, he drives a trolley and lives hand-to-mouth in a flophouse. When Boyd stumbles upon the scene of his wife's brutal killing, he loses his nerve and runs, only to be captured and jailed for double murder. In prison, he meets and befriends George, a black convict accused of raping a white woman. Narrowly escaping a crowd's attempt to lynch them, the men flee for their lives, hiding together before making their way to the anonymity of Chicago and day labor paid in cash. Boyd cannot endure the fugitive's underworld and returns to Vermilion, surrendering to his fate. Yet his supporters - a woman from his long-dead mother's youth, a Chicago Tribune reporter, and his aging but still formidable attorney - continue to believe in his innocence, and convince Boyd to fight for the justice that has eluded him. As the country stumbles toward collapse, a dramatic trial begins in the stifling county courtroom, in which Boyd's war record might well prove to be his undoing. A suspenseful novel, filled with twists and turns and an utterly surprising ending, Justice for None captures perfectly the Depression era Midwest in which Gene Hackman was raised -the grain silos, slaughterhouses, bars, barbershops and newspaper offices of small town and city life. It also explores issues of race, class, truth, and the human consequences of war, with a vivid cast of characters whose lives intersect in unexpected ways. "Absorbing...with all the moral complexities, last-minute revelations, and gravel-pounding histrionics that the genre requires...recalls classic American courtroom thrillers from To Kill a Mockingbird to Intruder in the Dust. Great small-town period detail." --Kirkus Reviews Gene Hackman grew up as in a newspaper family in Danville, Illinois and is a two-time Oscar-winning actor for Unforgiven and The French Connection . Daniel Lenihan is a leading underwater archaeologist, who writes frequently for Natural History magazine. Hackman and Lenihan have co-authored one previous novel, The Wake of the Perdido Star . Both live in Santa Fe, New Mexico.