Sir Robert D'Arcy, High Sheriff of Brackenshire, harbours a painful memory of what he considers his shameful surrender to the Germans in 1916. Gradually he realises nothing is known of the incident and his confidence returns, and he gains in honour and responsibility in the county. Then, out of the blue, a man appears who threatens to reveal the incident - or to keep it hidden, at a price. D'Arcy resists this new enemy, but is handicapped by his own view of his position, his past deed, his family pride. A tragedy occurs, and the Brackenshire police investigate, but are themselves hampered by reluctance to muddy distinguished waters. How is the ageing Chief Constable to face the problem?

Charles Chatman believed he would die in a Texas prison. He was sent there at age 21, convicted of raping a 52 year old white woman in his neighborhood, and sentenced to 99 years. The victim had picked his picture out of a line-up and the jury had ignored the testimony of his witnesses, that he was at work when the rape occurred. His court-appointed attorney made feeble efforts to defend him. He had served 27 years when Michelle Moore, a public defender working with the Innocence Project of Texas arranged a DNA test which proved him innocent, and District Judge John Creuzot ordered him released from prison. Richard Miles was more fortunate. After he had served 14 years of a 40 year sentence for murder, investigators for Centurion Ministries discovered police reports which had been hidden from him and his attorney, Ed Gray. A new trial was ordered, then the sole witness who had identified Miles recanted his testimony and claimed that he had been instructed to lie by a Dallas prosecutor. Over 250 prisoners in the U.S. have been exonerated in the last 20 years, some on death row and others serving long sentences. DNA testing has freed the majority, proof of false identification and misconduct by police and prosecutors the others. Dallas County, with one percent of the U.S. population, has accounted for 25 wrongful convictions, ten percent of the total. Henry Wade, Dallas County District Attorney for 32 years, ran the most aggressive and successful prosecutor's office in the country. Ed Gray, as Assistant District Attorney and criminal defense attorney had a ringside seat to the Henry Wade era. In these pages he explains how some of the innocent were convicted. TOUGH JUSTICE is the first book which attempts to portray the career and the history of Henry Wade, the most famous prosecutor in the history of Texas and perhaps the United States. After graduating from the University of Texas Business School and Southern Methodist University School of Law, Ed Gray was a civil law firm associate when he was appointed to represent an indigent defendant in Dallas District Court in 1969. In his first trial, Ed won a Not Guilty verdict and a job offer from District Attorney Henry Wade. He was quickly promoted to Felony Court, where he led the Dallas D. A.'s office in trials and convictions for the next four years. He was lead counsel in 15 murder trials, 13 attempted murder and aggravated assault trials, 8 rape trials, and 49 robbery trials resulting in sentences as high as death and 1200 years and only one Not Guilty verdict. Ed Gray has been a board certified criminal defense attorney since 1975, and has tried 525 criminal jury trials in state and federal courts.

Spy thriller fiction written in the Golden Age of Murder "War is coming—and that means our secret agents must get busy." August 1918. On his way to the Western Front, Captain Alan Clinton spends a night in Paris with a young Frenchwoman, Marie Roget. Seduced by Marie's charms, Clinton discloses British military secrets—with disastrous consequences. Seventeen years later. The central European state of Ronstadt is ruled by the ruthless dictator Kuhnreich, and Europe is inching towards another war. Clinton's son Bobby travels to Europe as the political situation grows tenser, and seems dangerously close to repeating the sins of his father—leaving only his girlfriend to prove his innocence in a race against time. This new edition of The Traitor gives contemporary readers a long overdue chance to rediscover an early thriller that is plotted with dash and verve—a novel that helps to explain the author's phenomenal popularity in his own time.