Inadmissible Evidence

The author of Reasonable Doubt returns with another unusually convincing courtroom procedural. When an appeals court sets aside a verdict declaring real estate developer Roberto Morales guilty of raping and murdering his girlfriend, the retrial falls to Manhattan assistant DA Joe Estrada. Determined to build a solid case, Estrada is hampered by the three-year interval since the first conviction. The trail is cold, witnesses prove reluctant to testify a second time, the Hispanic community resents its greatest success story's being put on trial and Estrada himself begins to have doubts about Morales's guilt. If Friedman's insistence on day-to-day doings occasionally undercuts his novel's sense of drama and consequence, it also invests his story with authority, allowing a clear portrait of the give-and-take of the legal system and affording an even stronger sense of the ambiguities that arise from the pursuit of justice. Literary Guild main selection. (Nov. )