Stanford law professor pens thriller

The demons of Richard Davenport’s past haunt him  when he is newly appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court and becomes the swing vote on two cases: debating euthanasia; and an organ transplant between brothers.

“Secret Justice: A Novel” is the latest legal mystery from Paul Goldstein, a Stanford University law professor and internationally acclaimed author.

Goldstein offers a thrilling tale of murder, moral ambiguity and blackmail in D.C.

“Secret Justice” tells the story of Davenport, who must cast the deciding vote in cases that, in their moral implications, mirror the justice’s own deepest secrets. It is, first and foremost, a novel of ideas, a legal thriller that derives its page-turning tension not from chase scenes or other action set pieces, but rather from the moral decisions and debates the new justice puts himself through as he considers two cases that touch upon a family secret that threatens to expose him to his enemies in the U.S. Senate and on the Supreme Court (not to mention the White House).

A professor of intellectual property law, Goldstein has published three previous novels to great acclaim: “Errors and Omissions,” “A Patent Lie” and, most recently, “Havana Requiem,” winner of the 2013 Harper Lee Prize for Best Legal Fiction, awarded by the University of Alabama School of Law and the ABA Journal.

He has been praised by The Wall Street Journal for having a “keen eye and sure hand of a gifted writer”  while the late Alan Cheuse, a National Public Radio contributor, said he “trumps John Grisham’s work in every way – character, setting, plot and the prose.”