A Philip K. Dick Award Nominee
"The novel is as tense and thrilling as any of Brown's work, and as
full of rage and hope. It's a novel that truly reckons with the enormity
of both our climate emergency and the system that produced it - a tale
of human imperfection and redemption." -- Cory Doctorow, bestselling
author of Walkaway
In this second dystopian legal thriller from the author of the
acclaimed Rule of Capture and Tropic of Kansas,
lawyer Donny Kimoe juggles two intertwined cases whose outcomes will
determine the course of America's future--and his own.
In the aftermath of a second American revolution, peace rests on a
fragile truce. The old regime has been deposed, but the ex-president has
vanished, escaping justice for his crimes. Some believe he is dead.
Others fear he is in hiding, gathering forces. As the factions in
Washington work to restore order, Donny Kimoe is in court to settle old
scores--and pay his own debts come due.
Meanwhile, the rebels Donny once defended are exacting their own kind of
justice. In the ruins of New Orleans, they are building a green
utopia--and kidnapping their defeated adversaries to pay for it. The
newest hostage is the young heiress to a fortune made from plundering
the country--and the daughter of one of Donny's oldest friends. In a
desperate gambit to save his own skin, Donny switches sides to defend
her before the show trial. If he fails, so will the truce, dragging the
country back into violence. But by taking the case, he risks his last
chance to expose the atrocities of the dictatorship--and being tried for
his own crimes against the revolution.
To save the future, Donny has to gamble his own. The only way out is to
find the evidence that will get both sides back to the table, and secure
a more lasting peace. To do that, Donny must betray his clients'
secrets. Including one explosive secret hidden in the ruins, the
discovery of which could extinguish the last hope for a better
tomorrow--or, if Donny plays it right, keep it burning.
