by Spike Adams (Author)

The fight lasted a few minutes. The lie that followed would last a lifetime.

Patricia Horn knows how easily a young Black life can be lost to a system where truth matters less than who wins and who pays. She lived it.

When a school fight leaves a white student gravely injured, her seventeen-year-old son Tyrene finds himself at the center of forces driven by vengeance and power. The injured boy's father, a veteran police officer determined to see Tyrene destroyed, aligns with another officer whose white supremacist beliefs run deep. Meanwhile, the chief prosecutor, nursing a personal vendetta against Tyrene's defense attorney, sees the case as an opportunity for retribution.

Patricia survived this system once. She will not let it take her son - and she will not fight alone as allies emerge from the most unexpected places.

Yet something else moves quietly. Something beautiful, something sacred -older than any law written by humsn hands-steps into the present.

Some reckoning need more than human justice. Some wrongs demand more.

The Fourth Cross is a powerful, epic-length legal thriller about racial injustice, a mother's fierce resolve, and a reckoning that will not be denied.

2026 Black Caucus ALA Literary Award Honor Winner

Netgalley Reviewer: "With solid writing and a powerful storyline, Spike Adams ( a retired judge) has written a blisteringly powerful (and equally heart-rending)novel that is an indictment of racism that heralds back to the 'Jim Crow' days but is all too prevalent in our political climate."

5 stars from this reviewer. I will definitely look for more books from this skilled author.

Comparable Titles: Attica Locke's Black Water Rising, Tony Wison's A Victim of Chance

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