Verdict Denied

After a drug cartel abducts his sister, a Kansas judge puts everything on the line to find her in this debut thriller.

Judge Benjamin Joel catches a death penalty case involving a local drug dealer with ties to a Mexican cartel. When Ben's sister is abducted three days before trial, Ben is told what he must do to save her--cut the defendant loose utilizing a seldom-used judicial tool known as a judgment of acquittal. A call to law enforcement would expose a conflict of interest that would disqualify him from the case and get his sister killed, so Ben plunges into the trial of his life by day, and the dark underworld of the drug trade by night, with the aid of only a few trusted allies.