Alex Cross's Trial

In a preface, Alex Cross explains that he has long wanted to write a book called Trial, drawn from his family's oral history and the journals of a lawyer named Ben Corbett. Cross's grandmother, Nana Mama, passed down stories about Abraham Cross, an uncle of hers who lived in Eudora, Mississippi. The events took place during Theodore Roosevelt's presidency. Cross believes the story helps explain why many Black Americans remain angry and hurt.

The narrative opens in Washington, D.C., in 1906. Ben Corbett, a Harvard-trained attorney, defends Gracie Johnson, a Black woman charged with murdering her wealthy white employer. The courtroom overflows with hostile white spectators who chant for Gracie to hang. Ben's summation confronts the jury with the fact that race is the real reason Gracie is on trial, but the jury returns a guilty verdict. Afterward, Gracie privately confesses to Ben that she did kill her employer accidentally, when the woman caught her stealing silver.

Ben walks home reflecting on his childhood in Eudora, Mississippi. At seven, his mother collapsed from a stroke in a store, and a Black teenager was the only person who helped Ben carry her to a doctor, a memory she reminded him of for the rest of her life. That evening, Ben's wife, Meg, a former Radcliffe student from Rhode Island, confronts him about their failing marriage, frustrated by his pro-bono work for the disenfranchised. Their argument is interrupted by Nate Pryor, a Black veteran who served with Ben in the Tenth Cavalry, a segregated U.S. Army regiment, at San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War. Nate bears a summons from President Roosevelt.

At the White House, Roosevelt charges Ben with a secret mission: to return to Eudora and investigate whether lynchings are widespread and whether the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist organization outlawed decades earlier, is thriving. A cover story claims Ben is interviewing candidates for federal judgeships; if exposed, Roosevelt will deny involvement. Ben receives a contact name: Abraham Cross, of the Eudora Quarters.

Ben already knows the horror of lynching. At twelve, he followed a mob into a swamp and watched them torture and hang a Black teenager named George Pearson while a photographer named Scooter Willems documented the killing. When Ben tells Meg about the mission, she erupts in fury and warns him not to come back. Their daughter Amelia begs him not to leave.

Eudora looks largely unchanged, though new "White" and "Colored" signs mark doorways. Ben encounters Elizabeth Begley, his childhood sweetheart, now married to state senator Richard Nottingham, and visits his estranged father, Judge Everett Corbett, who greets him with cold sarcasm. He reconnects warmly with Jacob Gill, his childhood best friend. In the Eudora Quarters, the Black section of town, Ben meets Abraham Cross, an extraordinarily tall, eighty-nine-year-old man who tells Ben his people are worse off now than the day Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

Abraham takes Ben on mule rides to show him evidence of lynching: trees stripped bare by rope friction, a purpose-built amphitheater with spectator benches and hanging ropes, and decomposing victims. Ben cuts down the body of Jimmy Patton and carries it home on a mule. He meets Abraham's granddaughter, Moody Cross, a fierce young woman hostile toward Ben, and her brother, Hiram Cross, a nineteen-year-old aspiring lawyer. Moody recounts local injustices and tells Ben to go home, insisting he cannot protect them.

Ben receives a threatening postcard warning him to leave. He grows closer to Elizabeth while Meg writes to announce she is moving to her father's house. Violence escalates: two men are lynched after confronting Jasper Young, who raped a Black woman's daughter. Then Hiram is lynched after someone overheard him say that one day white people would work for Black people. After Hiram's funeral, three men attack Ben, beat him, and hang him from a tree. Scooter photographs him. Ben survives only because his fingers wedge between the rope and his neck. He drifts in and out of consciousness for days before people from the Quarters find and cut him down.

When Ben tries to return to town, he is shunned everywhere. He takes refuge with Jacob, who reveals he is a Klansman and takes Ben to a meeting where members include the pharmacist, the minister, and the sheriff. Jacob forces Ben to witness the hanging of Eli Weinberg, a Jewish man. Ben denounces them and walks away, ending their friendship.

Moody brings urgent news: The White Raiders, a violent gang, are coming to kill her, Abraham, and Cousin Ricky, a relative who has taken refuge at Abraham's house after being run out of another town for allegedly having improper thoughts about a white woman. Abraham is gravely ill. Ben recruits L.J. Stringer, a wealthy childhood friend, to defend the house. The Raiders attack, killing two defenders in the ensuing gun battle. A Raider holds Abraham at gunpoint, but Moody stabs the man with a kitchen knife. Ben and L.J. pressure Police Chief Phineas Eversman into arresting three Raiders on murder charges.

The trial is held in Eudora, with Judge Corbett presiding, a highly irregular arrangement given that his son assists the prosecution. The state appoints Jonah Curtis, a brilliant young Black lawyer, as prosecutor; the defense hires Maxwell Hayes Lewis, known as "Loophole Lewis." W.E.B. Du Bois, the prominent Black writer and activist, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett, the antilynching campaigner, lead a march through Eudora's streets. Judge Corbett empanels an all-white jury, overruling virtually all prosecution objections. Lewis claims the Raiders came with a search warrant and that Abraham's defenders shot first. Abraham testifies from a wheelchair, denying ever seeing a warrant, but Lewis dismantles the prosecution witnesses one by one.

Moody then delivers a calculated lie on the stand: She testifies that the Raiders did show her a warrant and that she accepted it, but they attacked anyway. By conceding the defense's central claim, Moody removes the Raiders' justification: Even if the warrant was real, the Raiders still launched a murderous assault after receiving cooperation.

Ben, Moody, and L.J. break into Scooter's studio and discover photographs documenting lynchings, including images of the defendants standing over victims. They are caught by Scooter, Eversman, Nottingham, and Jacob. Nottingham reveals that Elizabeth has been spying on Ben throughout his stay, reporting his every word. The men confiscate the photographs.

Ben delivers the prosecution's closing argument, walking the jury through the night of the attack and appealing to their consciences. The jury returns a verdict of not guilty. In defiance, Ben takes Moody's hand and walks down Eudora's main sidewalk. They enter the whites-only drugstore and the Slide Inn Café, are refused service, and Ben kisses Moody on the street before fleeing a jeering crowd. The people of the Quarters declare they will fight back if attacked again.

That night, the Raiders mount a final assault, but the residents are prepared and fight back with guns, knives, and farm tools. Ben confronts one of the Raiders but cannot bring himself to pull the trigger. He faces Jacob in a knife fight, overpowers him, but spares his life. The Raiders are defeated and driven out. Abraham Cross dies peacefully in his bed. Moody reads scripture over his body.

Back in Washington, Roosevelt congratulates Ben, explaining that the political value lies in the national attention, not the verdict. Ben realizes Roosevelt ignored his reports until the trial presented a political opportunity. Disgusted, he declines the president's invitation to address the press. Walking home, Ben carries Abraham's final words: "You did fine, Ben. You did just fine" (348). He unlocks his door and hears his daughters' voices, then Meg's: "I certainly hope so. Wouldn't that be wonderful?" (380). Ben takes his family in his arms and promises never to leave again, a promise he keeps.