Publisher's Synopsis
Amidst the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, the O.J. Simpson murder trial, and the Million Man March, a rookie DC lawyer is appointed to represent an indigent black man charged with breaking into a school. Liam McNaughton is the ultimate slacker lawyer - he dreams of quixotic Supreme Court challenges and CNN interviews, but he's never tried a case. His client's Unlawful Entry charge is only a misdemeanor, but the man has eight years of back-up time hanging over his head for the crime of feticide. And when the trial begins with the seating of an all-white jury, Liam finally realizes that he has become an unwitting cog in a conspiracy to trigger a bloody civil war. "The Heyward Shepherd Conspiracy, by Map V. Ryan" is told through various narratives, including letters, memoranda, court orders, police reports, and a transcript of a trial, allowing the book's ensemble of characters to explain in their own words their various roles in the diabolical plot: Annie Fairbrother, the veteran prosecutor whose high-risk pregnancy tests her resolve in sending a baby killer back to prison; De La Suggs, a diminutive hit-man afflicted by AIDS and a busy schedule; James McCoy, a closeted police officer who believes, somewhat messianically, that he has supernatural investigative powers; and the mysterious Captain - a pot-smoking, one-armed U.S. Marshal with a penchant for Civil War trivia. Taut to the last page, "The Heyward Shepherd Conspiracy" ends as it begins - with a volcanic explosion of ladybugs, the shimmering Curtain of Life - a visual testament to the frightening ardor of real life anti-abortion terrorists like Paul Hill and Eric Rudolph who picture themselves as modern day John Browns.
