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A Novel
Beau Lee Cooper
Bantam
February 2026
On Sale: February 17, 2026
368 pages
ISBN: 0593875702
EAN: 9780593875704
Kindle: B0FKG23528
Hardcover / e-Book / audiobook
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Mystery | Thriller Legal | Multicultural African-American
In this gripping thriller, truth and justice are called into question when a Black man is gunned down in cold blood—the first novel in a riveting series from renowned civil rights attorney Ben Crump.
It’s the night of November 4, 2008. America's first Black president has just been elected. And fifty-three-year-old Hollis Montrose—a Black ex-police officer from the suburbs of Chicago—has become the latest victim of a brutal attack. He was shot ten times in cold blood by four white men who otherwise would have been colleagues back in his police days.
Beau Lee Cooper was born serious, as if on an urgent mission with little time to waste. Raised in the tumultuous world of Texas, it had always been his dream to become a lawyer and fight for what’s right, ever since he was a little boy reading To Kill A Mockingbird. And now, ten years into running his own law firm with his best friend and partner in crime Nelson “Nellie” Rivers and his suave right-hand-man Brent “Cape” Capers, he feels he’s finally making a difference. When Beau Lee learns about Hollis’s situation, he’s determined to help.
Miraculously, Hollis survives the encounter, but the Chicago Police Department has already spun the narrative in their favor, and Hollis is given a wrongful prison sentence with an unreasonable bail. What really happened that night the car was pulled over? Was it random or was Hollis targeted? Beau Lee knows he’s treading dangerous waters, and finding evidence of the truth will be his biggest challenge yet, but with troubling powers at play, one innocent man’s life hangs in the balance.
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