Pocket Simon&Schuster, New York 1989

This novel is set in the quiet town of Hillston, North Carolina, where Police Chief Cuddy Mangum is confronted with the case of young George Hall, sentenced to death for a crime he says he did not commit. At the very last moment his execution is stopped by the governor, and this sets the whole story in motion.

Malone has several agendas he wants to follow at the same time:

There is Mangum, whose career and love life is complicated.

There is the history of Hillston as an example for the American South.

There is the story of century long discrimination of Blacks.

There is the mix of law and political interference, culminating in a court trial of the reopened case of George Hall.

All in all it is a bit too much of everything.