by James A. Ardaiz
Publication Date: November 5, 2019
$18.95 US • Trade Paperback • 6″ x 9″ • 360 pages
ISBN 978-1-61035-345-8
Reopening a cold murder case uncovers disturbing secrets and forces a young prosecutor to an agonizing decision in the gritty, fast-paced, and coldly realistic new legal thriller Shades of Truth.
Written by a former prosecutor and judge who intimately knows the world of attorneys, detectives and criminals, Shades of Truth crackles with authenticity and a propulsive hard-boiled story.
When rapidly rising assistant DA Matt Jamison is assigned to convicted murderer Rick Harker’s habeas corpus hearing, it hardly seems worth his trouble. Everyone knows that Harker was guilty. Twenty-six years ago he murdered Lisa Farrow and set her body on fire. Lisa’s three-year-old daughter Christine identified Harker as the murderer, and he’s been in San Quentin ever since. The only mystery about the case is why the original trial judge didn’t give Harker the death sentence he richly deserved.
But now the adult Christine Farrow is recanting her testimony, handing Jamison a case that will test his character and his convictions. While Harker’s idealistic attorney demands a new trial, Jamison retraces the original investigation, trying to find if there is any doubt of Harker’s guilt.
Jamison’s investigation leads him deep into the past lives of people who want to stay hidden: Mike Jensen, the lead detective on the original case, now an ailing alcoholic clinging to past glory and resentful of any insinuation he got it wrong; Christine Farrow, deeply traumatized by childhood tragedy and possibly the victim of an unscrupulous therapist; Clarence Foster, the low-level career criminal who identified Harker as the killer; and Jamison’s own dead father, a famous defense attorney mysteriously involved in the Harker case.
As Jamison gets closer to learning the truth behind Harker’s conviction, his investigators and friends repeatedly warn him to stop before he discovers a secret that might end his high-flying career. When Jamison finds evidence of corruption in the DA’s office he is faced with a stark dilemma: Is exposing the truth worth the damage?
Audience: Legal thriller and mystery readers.
About the Author: James A. Ardaiz is a former prosecutor, judge and Presiding Justice of the California Fifth District Court of Appeal. Ardaiz’s previous books include Fractured Justice, the first Matt Jamison legal thriller, and Hands Through Stone, a nonfiction account of Ardaiz’s investigation and prosecution of murderer Clarence Ray Allen, the last man executed by the State of California.
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by James A. Ardaiz
Publication Date: February 16, 2021
Listen to James A. Ardaiz interview on Tears of Honor on Paul Loeffler’s Hometown Heroes radio
A sweeping novel of history, war, and courage in the face of injustice, Tears of Honor tells the story of the heroic Japanese American soldiers who fought against Nazi tyranny in Europe, while their families were imprisoned in America.
Sammy and Freddy are two all-American boys in the summer of 1941, dreaming of becoming professional baseball players and maybe asking a girl to the senior prom. But when war comes, Sammy Miyaki, Freddy Shiraga, and their families are seen as enemy aliens, not Americans. Taken from their homes in rural central California and placed in internment camps, the boys decide that the only way to prove their loyalty to America is to join the Army.
Assigned to an all Japanese American combat unit fighting against the Germans, Sammy and Freddy are placed under the command of the combat-hardened Lieutenant Young Oak Kim (a real-life person and one of the most highly decorated American soldiers in history), who leads them through some of the fiercest fighting of the war. Sammy, Freddy and their comrades confront the prejudice of white soldiers and the horrors of combat, as they come to realize they are fighting not just for the United States, but for the honor of all Japanese Americans.
$19.95 US • Trade Paperback • 6″ x 9″ • 560 pages
ISBN 978-1-61035-900-9
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