Tomlinson meshes local politics, college basketball, and the South in this wonderfully gritty crime novel you just can't put down. --Dave White, author of An Empty Hell Summer, 1994. Dean Goodnight, the first Choctaw Indian employed by the Oklahoma County public defenders office, pulls a new case--the brutal murder of a once-promising basketball star. The only witness is Caleb, the five-year-old son of the prime suspect, Billy. Investigating the murder, Dean draws four strangers into Billys orbit, each of whom becomes deeply invested in the suspect's fate--and in Calebs. Theres Aura Jefferson, the victims sister, a nurse struggling with the loss of her brother; Auras patient Cecil Porter, a paraplegic whose own dreams of playing pro basketball were shattered fifty years ago; Cecils brother, the entrepreneur and political manipulator Big Ben Porter; and Bens wife, Becca, who discovers a link between the young Caleb and her own traumatic past. As Billys trial approaches, these five are forced to confront their deepest disappointments, hopes, and fears. And when tragedy strikes again, their lives are forever entwined. The Midnight Man is a novel about family in the modern world and the difficulties of finding true understanding in even the closest relationships. Woven around and through a tragic death penalty case, the characters come alive on each page. We see vividly, richly, the human demands on those caught up in Americas system of capital punishment. This novel gives a rich portrait of the forces driving wedges between people on different sides of the death penalty debate and, perhaps more importantly, the forces that unite them. This is a sad but wonderful book. --Austin Sarat, author of When the State Kills With its swiftly moving plot and compelling cast of characters, The Midnight Man is a lively portrait of America bearing down on the end of the last century: divided by race, united by the sense that were all in this together, set to be transformed by unimaginable violence. David Eric Tomlinson has the novelists finely tuned ear for language, the journalists grasp of unfolding history, and the native sons unerring sense of place. His is an important new voice. --Rilla Askew, author The Mercy Seat and Strange Business
