Scorched Earth » (Reprint)

David L. Robbins is the author of War of the Rats, The End of War, and Souls to Keep. He is a former attorney and a freelance writer who lives in Richmond, Virginia.

From David L. Robbins, bestselling author of The End of War and War of the Rats, comes a novel of searing intensity and uncompromising vision. Part mystery, part legal thriller, it is a story of crime and punishment set in a small southern town during one brutal, hot, and unforgiving summer that lays bare the potential of the human heart to hate–and, ultimately, to heal.

Scorched Earth

The inhabitants of Good Hope, Virginia, haven’t felt the cooling effects of rain in weeks. The crops are withering. The ground is parched. There is no relief in sight. With the town a tinderbox waiting to explode, all it takes is a spark to ignite all the prejudice, the rage, and the secrets that are so carefully kept hidden. And then, in the midst of the terrible heat, a tragedy occurs. A baby is born and dies in her mother’s arms. The child, Nora Carol, is buried quickly and quietly the next day in a church graveyard. It should have ended right there–but it didn’t, for Nora Carol is of mixed race.

The white deacons of Good Hope’s Victory Baptist Church, trying to protect the centuries-old traditions of their cemetery, have the body exhumed. That night the church is set ablaze, and the sole witness is the only suspect–Elijah Waddell, Nora Carol’s father.

Nat Deeds, a former prosecutor and an exile of Good Hope, is pressed into service as Elijah’s attorney. With a politically savvy prosecutor and a vindictive sheriff aligned against him, Nat knows it will be nearly impossible to get Elijah acquitted. But Elijah refuses to accept a plea.

As the evidence mounts, Nat begins to suspect there is something his client isn’t telling him, and the next revelation turns Good Hope into a powder keg: a body is found in the ashes of the church. Now Elijah is accused of murder, and the case is no longer a matter of winning or losing, but of life or death.

The only way Nat can save his client is to scratch and claw for any shred of evidence, even if he has to bend the law to find it. As the summer heat intensifies and passions reach their boiling point, Nat must navigate through the incendiary secrets kept by friends and neighbors, by the guilty and the innocent, to an act of justice that has nothing to do with the law.

Publishers Weekly

Intricately plotted, insightful and deeply affecting, this novel by the author of the bestselling The End of War probes the malignancy of racial prejudice among the self-righteous citizens of a tightly knit Southern blue-collar town. At first, no one seems too put out by the interracial marriage of 32-year-old Elijah Waddell and Clare, the 22-year-old white granddaughter of Rosy Epps, former schoolteacher and leading citizen of Good Hope, Va. When their daughter is born without a brain and dies only minutes after delivery, Rosy a driving force among the hierarchy of the Victory Baptist Church invites controversy when she has the child's body buried in the all-white churchyard cemetery. However, she raises no protest when the deacons have the casket disinterred and moved to the cemetery of a nearby black Baptist church. That night the white church is burned to the ground, and Elijah is caught seemingly red-handed at the site, watching it burn. The judge orders Nat Deeds, a former assistant DA, to return from Richmond to defend Elijah. Anxious to put the case and Good Hope behind him, Nat tries to convince Elijah to cop a plea but when the body of the bullying sheriff's teenage daughter is discovered in the ruins, he is charged with capital murder. Overnight, the once-serene backwater becomes a time bomb of pent-up racial enmity. With empathy and beautiful prose, Robbins succeeds at evoking the vagaries and triumphs of the human heart. Agents, Tracy Fisher and Owen Laster of William Morris. (Apr. 2) Forecast: Major print and radio promo will help propel this provocative title into the spotlight, where it belongs. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.