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Reverse Onus by James Fontana

In San Diego, the mystery solver is trial judge Howard Lerner, not a detective or a defense lawyer. A routine murder case against a Mexican student leads him to political intrigue and an environmental conspiracy.

About the book

Swinging between the subterranean cellblocks of the San Diego Police Department, the courtroom, and the California desert, Reverse Onus contains all of the intrigue, mystery and characters traditional to the Courtroom-thriller genre. But with a difference. Here, the protagonist, the mystery solver is not the detective or the defense attorney but the trial judge, Judge Howard Lerner.

When Judge Lerner is rather curiously called in to hear a routine murder case against a hapless Mexican student, Rico Estefan, he discerns things both inside and outside the courtroom that lead him to startling revelations of political intrigue, environmental conspiracy, and murder.

Each character in the array of disparate characters, has a reason to want the case to go their way: the crusading, ethically flexible assistant D.A., the neophyte defense attorney, the Runyanesque cop with a sorry background, a shadowy mobster, a U.S. senator and Kelly, the girl who beds the judge.

Teased by snippets of fact and evidence, the reader focuses on the 'surface plot' wondering whether the accused Estefan can survive the false murder accusation against him. Can his young, untested attorney, Winston Harp, overcome the weight of strong circumstantial evidence?

The solution springs abruptly from presiding Judge Lerner. Only he has recognized the 'sub-surface' conspiracy underlying the murder rap. Everyone in the courtroom has heard the same evidence, but only Lerner has seen 'through' it. He abruptly brings the trial to a halt in a singularly unorthodox way before rushing to forestall a cataclysmic international incident in the California desert.

About the author

James Fontana was born and raised in Boundary Waters country where Ontario and Minnesota are joined by Rainy Lake, and where the bass fishing is so good you have to hide behind a tree to bait your hook.

Educated at the University of Toronto (St. Michael's College), the University of Ottawa (Faculty of Law) and Osgoode Hall Law School, he was admitted to the practice of law in 1966. He worked initially as both a state and federal prosecutor in Ottawa, Canada's capital, before spending fifteen years in the field of civil litigation and criminal defense work. In 1984 he became a member of the Ontario Court of Justice (Criminal).

Throughout his career, Jim has lectured frequently at prosecutors' conferences, coroners' conferences, police training programs, and continuing education programs for both defense and prosecuting attorneys.

His writings include a four volume series on the law of search and seizure which is used widely by the legal profession, and many articles and commentaries. Reverse Onus is a courtroom thriller. His novel -- No Cause of Death -- based upon a true crime event, was published in 1994. Unpublished (and un-submitted) works include: The Elbe Arcanum, (a novel), A Man In the Ladies' Gallery, (a True Crime book), The Twelfth Station, (a novel), Never As it Seems, (aka Twenty Twizzlers, a collection of short-stories with a twist).

Jim's hobbies are bass fishing, amateur radio and restoring an old Morgan car. Jim will be at the 'Bloody Words' Conference for Crime Writers in Toronto on June 8th and 9th.

Archived from the Harris Literary Agency website. The agency's listing is reproduced as published, with contact details removed.

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