Failed State

Attorney Donny Kimoe returns, eight years after the events of Rule of Capture, in Brown’s larger-than-life near-future legal thriller of environmental collapse and social rebuilding. While trying to find justice for the son of murdered activists and working to free a kidnapped heiress, Donny has to negotiate his way back into the Free City of New Orleans after having been exiled by the rebels that control the city. To overcome their distrust of him, born of his work defending a despotic former president from a death sentence, Donny must reconnect with their leader, his ex-girlfriend Joyce—who also happens to be the one who kidnapped the heiress in the first place, and who is now concocting a scheme to turn ecoterrorist. Brown adds new layers to the wildly imaginative dystopian setting of his first two works, now with an emphasis on environmental law. The scenes of sunken New Orleans are vivid and will keep the pages turning to an overloaded climax that nevertheless sets things up nicely for the next volume. Readers will be eager to see it. Agent: Mark Gottlieb, Trident Media Group. (Aug.)