Sherwin Ellis, the young black man who’s charged with the murder of motel owner Ed Covey, can’t make his alibi — his underage girlfriend — stick. He sits in jail, burning with anger. His only hope is Kwame Taylor, a brilliant up-and-coming attorney from Houston, who sends civil rights lawyer Bill Mermann to oversee the jury selection. When Taylor has to bow out of the case, Mermann finds himself defending Ellis in his first-ever capital murder case.     MORE

Praise at Midnight is more than a small story set in a small town thirty-odd years ago. The themes of justice, race relations, and the not-so-pretty insider dealings of the legal system remain relevant today.