Frank Carlson Library

In Biloxi, Mississippi, a woman sues a tobacco company for the death of her husband from lung cancer. The protagonists are a jury fixer, that is a lawyer whose role is to assure a jury favorable to the company, and a rogue juror whom the fixer cannot eliminate or control. This is a landmark tobacco trial with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake which begins routinely, then swerves mysteriously off course. The jury is behaving strangely, and at...

For most of the last hundred years, Biloxi was known for its beaches, resorts, and seafood industry. But it had a darker side. It was also notorious for corruption and vice, everything from gambling, prostitution, bootleg liquor, and drugs to contract killings. The vice was controlled by small cabal of mobsters, many of them rumored to be members of the Dixie Mafia. Keith Rudy and Hugh Malco grew up in Biloxi in the sixties and were childhood friends,...

Stafford Lee Penney is a small-town lawyer with a big-time reputation for winning every case he tries. In his sharp suits and polished Oxford shoes, Penney is Biloxi, Mississippi's #1 Lawyer and top local celebrity. Just as Penney notches his latest courtroom victory, his wife is scandalously killed. He spirals into a legal and personal losing streak, damaging his reputation and ruining his career. That's when Penney makes a bold decision. He stops...