A girl dies one late, rainy night a few feet from the back door of her home. The girl, Abeba, was born in Ethiopia. Her adoptive parents, Delvin and Betsy Harvey--conservative, white fundamentalist Christians--are charged with her murder.

Royal, a Seattle criminal attorney in the last days of his long career, takes Betsy Harvey's case. An octogenarian without a driver's license, he leans on his son--the novel's narrator--as he prepares for trial.

So begins The Final Case, a bracing, astute, and deeply affecting examination of justice and injustice--and familial love. David Guterson's first courtroom drama since Snow Falling on Cedars, it is his most compelling and heartfelt novel to date.