Winner, First Prize, Chicago Writers Assn. Novel Contest

Set during the inner-city riots of 1965-66, To Do Justice tells the story of Pinkie, a mixed-race child of Chicago's meanest streets ... and Mollie, a lovelorn (white) reporter in the Chicago bureau of The Associated Press. Together this unlikely pair will track down the white woman who gave Pinkie birth ... and score a Pulitzer-worthy scoop in the bargain.

Here's what others have said about To Do Justice:

"A fast-moving tale of race, corruption and self-discovery set against the unrest - and the hope - of Chicago during Martin Luther King's fateful 1965-66 fair housing campaign." Pulitzer Prize columnist Leonard Pitts Jr., author, Grant Park

"To Do Justice drops you into the white-hot center of the 1966 Chicago race riots and gives you a street-level view of what happened and why. The big names are here -- Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson, Richard Daley, to name a few. But the beating heart of this dramatic story is that of an orphaned biracial girl forced into the streets by an abusive foster parent ... and the hard-working AP reporter who befriends her and helps solve the mystery of her peculiar parentage. Beautifully written and eerily in-tune with the racial concerns of our own time. To Do Justice is a must-read for anyone interested in one of the most turbulent moments in American history and how it still reverberates in our collective consciousness." -- Richard Armstrong, author, The Next Hurrah and The Don Con.

To Do Justice, Book #3 of the "Chicago Trilogy," is published by Key Literary. To Love Mercy, Book #1, and To Walk Humbly, Book #2, are forthcoming from Key Literary. (To Love Mercy was published by Mid Atlantic Highlands [2006] in a slightly different version.)