Condition: Cover and interior pages are in excellent condition; however, there is some spotty discoloration on page edges. Richly plotted, tense, alive with a large cast of memorable characters, full of strong issues, including murder and the police work that solves it, the morality of capital punishment, a dramatic trial in a town that is about to blow up racially and politically. Most of all it is the story of a vivid, powerful human being charged with bringing the murderer to justice, torn between his growing hatred of capital punishment and his duty to the community. He bears the additional burden of a conflict between two kinds of love that are quietly destroying him, one heterosexual, the other a homosexual liaison he yearns to end, which is sure to explode into scandal if uncovered by the enemies he’s forced to make during the course of his investigation 1970 - first edition