CONVICTION

A sober, understated take on the sensational story of golden-boy TV producer Ted Jeffries—on trial for dealing drugs and making porn tapes in Hollywood House, his well-known shelter for runaway kids—and of his dogged federal prosecutor Walter Buris, struggling to put together an admissible case after Roscoe Brown, Jeffries's right-hand man and Walter's star witness, is killed. Despite warnings from his chiefs in Justice and from FBI agent Dan Matti not to get personally involved, Walter presses his case. The only results are threatening calls and letters and entrapment on a marijuana charge that will surely get Walter fired—so that he has nothing more to lose. Though first-novelist Pillsbury studiously avoids the dramatic climax you might expect, the accounts of Jeffries's loyal, presumably abused, teens testifying on their mentor's behalf ring with sad authenticity. A familiar legal tale of David and Goliath, told without heroics.