THE SILK ROBE

In Q’s debut legal thriller, a rising judge encounters corruption among her colleagues.

At 45, Irene Dunne is young for a District Chief Judge of the Court, even if she’s beginning to feel older as a woman. Age and divorce have not slackened her sexual appetite, though the attractive justice is shrewd enough to leave town whenever she’s in the mood to pick up a handsome younger man—or two. It is ironic that, just after the funeral of a famously cruel judge gets Irene thinking about judicial subjectivity, she learns that the FBI is investigating her district court for corruption. Irene is not a suspect—the FBI reveals the investigation to her because of her reputation for integrity—but she still thinks the bureau is barking up the wrong tree. She is soon proven wrong when a peer judge is indicted and commits suicide in his chambers. Horrified, Irene takes it upon herself to try to root out the rot at the center of his district, even if it means ruffling the feathers of friends and mentors. She finds an unexpected ally—and perhaps something more—in Justice T.H. Clark, the district’s resident rake. But just how far will Irene go to clean up the courts, especially if it means she gets taken out with the rest of the garbage? Q clearly knows the ins and outs of a judge’s chambers, bringing the insular, deferential culture of justices to surprising life. Part of the demystification is Irene’s realization that her colleagues are not infallible. “How could this type of person be thrust into a position of trust and allowed to decide the fate of other human beings, often the very lives of others?” she wonders about one justice nicknamed Judge Ghoul. The book features a few too many chapter-long digressions and monologues, and it’s not nearly as sexy as the opening chapter implies, but fans of legal thrillers will find much here to chew on.

A messy but engagingly detailed novel about the secrets hidden beneath a judge’s robe.