#1 New York Times Bestseller!

Academy Award winning actress Viola Davis and the world's #1 bestselling author James Patterson’s Judge Stone “delivers first-class courtroom drama, small-town excitement, and strong characters all wrapped in a moral dilemma. Tense, readable, and relevant.” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)

“Talk about a power combo! ... With Davis’s razor-sharp emotional insight and Patterson’s mastery of rocket-fuel pacing, this is the dream team to deliver an up-all-night read that will keep the group chat buzzing.” —Oprah Daily

“Wonderfully satisfying ... This legal thriller from [a] superstar duo ... demands attention from its opening pages and never lets go.” —Booklist, starred review

All rise... for Judge Stone.

The most respected citizen in Union Springs, Alabama (population 3,314), is Judge Mary Stone. She holds two responsibilities sacred: running her family farm and presiding over her courtroom. It's there she draws the most controversial case in the history of the South.

Criminally, it’s open-and-shut.

Ethically, there is no middle ground. Essentially, it’s a choice between life and death.
 
No judge can satisfy everyone. It would be dangerous to try. But Judge Stone is willing to fight to bring justice to the people and place she loves.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Little, Brown and Company

• Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 9, 2026

• Author: Viola Davis

• Language ‏ : ‎ English

• Print length ‏ : ‎ 432 pages

• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0316579831

• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0316579834

‍n this gripping thriller, truth and justice are called into question when a Black man is gunned down in cold blood—the first novel in a riveting series from renowned civil rights attorney Ben Crump.

“A sensationally good crime and legal thriller . . . This is exactly what a book should be.”—Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling co-author of the Reacher series

It’s the night of November 4, 2008. America’s first Black president has just been elected. And fifty-three-year-old Hollis Montrose—a Black ex–police officer from the suburbs of Chicago—has become the latest victim of a brutal attack. As the result of a traffic stop gone wrong, Hollis is shot ten times in cold blood, by four white men who could have been his colleagues back in his police days.

Beau Lee Cooper was born serious, as if on an urgent mission with little time to waste. Raised in the tumultuous world of 1970s Texas, he always dreamed of becoming a lawyer and fighting for what’s right, ever since he was a little boy reading To Kill a Mockingbird. And now, ten years into running his own law firm with his best friend and partner in crime, Nelson “Nellie” Rivers, and his suave right-hand-man, Brent “Cape” Capers, he feels he’s finally making a difference. When Beau Lee learns about Hollis’s situation, he’s determined to help.

Miraculously, Hollis survives the encounter, but the Chicago police department has already spun the narrative in its favor, and Hollis is given a wrongful prison sentence with an unreasonable bail. What really happened that night the car was pulled over? Was it random or was Hollis targeted? Beau Lee knows he’s treading in dangerous waters, and finding evidence of the truth will be his biggest challenge yet, but with troubling powers at play, one innocent man’s life hangs in the balance.