Religious Convictions

The action occurs in Arkansas, but this novel's spiritual territory is Graham Greene country: the plot involves religion, murder, suicide and pornography. The two writers also share a preoccupation with their characters' moral dilemmas. Stockley's hero is Gideon Page, a struggling attorney and lapsed Catholic living in a community where nearly everybody else belongs to the fundamentalist sect, Christian Life. Page is approached by the area's most powerful lawyer to assist in the murder trial of Leigh Wallace, daughter of Christian Life's leader, who is accused of killing her husband. As he tries to get information from an uncooperative client and witnesses who are either lying or stonewalling, Page gradually realizes that he has been lured into a case that is not at all what it seems.