txt A Malleable Truth

Alcohol. Drugs. Sex. Lies. Money. Why do the central characters in the courtroom drama A Malleable Truth pretend they don’t have those compulsions? Because the legal system rewards those who lie about their addictions and promotes the compulsions it purports to protect us against? Because society wants to believe the story of the recovered addict, even when the facts show otherwise?

Luke Redding is fired on Christmas Eve from his newspaper advertising job in Southern California. Was he drunk at work after lunch with a young female intern, or was he fired in a cost-cutting move? A Malleable Truth moves from Palm Grove, where Luke’s marriage and country club life collapse, to a sexually charged Los Angeles courtroom, and to San Francisco where Luke desperately fights his former employer in court without a lawyer. Judge Roger Cronin, whose wife attended rehab meetings with Luke to cure a Vicodin addiction, must decide whether Luke was discharged for misconduct and whether he had an irresistible compulsion to use alcohol. A Malleable Truth resounds with courtroom action featuring technological treachery, shocking admissions, and a judge struggling to retain control of witnesses, reporters, and his own emotions. Told in a taut, no-holds-barred manner, with fast-paced dialogue, biting humor, political intrigue, courtroom drama featuring take-no-prisoner cross-examinations, and meticulous plotting faithful to the complexity of its characters and the legal process, the novel seeks to peel away the masks all of us employ to reveal the truth obscured by the hypocrisy.

A Malleable Truth is a legal thriller and a psychological inquiry into the ways in which our compulsions mandate and justify the manipulation of truth.