The Right to Silence

About the Book

New Orleans lawyer Josie Guimarães fights both middle age and injustice as she defends an uncooperative client accused of killing an unpopular judge. Somehow, she manages to solve the mystery through her disaster-prone Volkswagen Bug, constantly serviced by a Mexican mechanic who sees in her the incarnation of a Cuban voodoo goddess.

About the Author

Michael H. Idoyaga is a middle-aged trial lawyer and part-time law professor living in what=s left of New Orleans, where he feels strangely at home there because it reminds him of the Latin America and Africa of his youth as a U.N. diplomat=s son. He bears a slight resemblance to Hugh, the romantic interest of his protagonist Josie Guimarães, except that he hasn=t yet given up the practice of law to become a restaurant critic. He still represents citizens presumed innocent of murder, rape, robbery, drunk driving, drug dealing, and lifting their shirts on balconies during Mardi Gras. He escapes once a year to the French Alps to visit family, to breathe the air, to eat proper cold cuts and cheeses, and to answer the question AIn America, are courtroom scenes really comme à la télé?@