Courtroom novels are one of my guilty pleasures. I read them with joy, and frequently discuss them with fellow attorneys as well as non-lawyer lovers of the genre. And I often have the opportunity to speak to groups in my community on great works of courtroom fiction. AL-TOUNSI by Canadian-American playwright Anton Piatigorsky is a courtroom thriller unlike most entries in the genre. It is enthralling and timely, and presents a view of the legal world far different from the traditional portrayal typically found in the works of popular courtroom novelists such as John Grisham, Michael Connelly and Scott Turow.

"It is enthralling and timely, and presents a view of the legal world far different from the traditional portrayal typically found in the works of popular courtroom novelists such as John Grisham, Michael Connelly and Scott Turow."

First of all, most courtroom fiction is set in the swirling center of the criminal justice system, focusing on the crime, the attorneys and the defendant. It is a battle to defend an innocent client, overturn a wrongful conviction, or, on many occasions, bring a guilty party to justice. The story is often told from the perspective of the lawyers or the defendant. In AL-TOUNSI, there are two substantial deviations from this general formula. The lawyers play no part at all in the story; it is the judges who are the subject of the novel. In addition, the putative defendant, Majid Al-Tounsi, has no physical appearance in the book. Readers learn something about him from news accounts, but Al-Tounsi is a foreign citizen, designated as an enemy combatant and imprisoned at a military facility in the U.S. naval base in Subic Bay, Philippines. His petition for relief under habeas corpus has reached the United States Supreme Court.

Piatigorsky opens his novel in the conference room of the United States Supreme Court. The activities in this room remain mostly cloistered to the public, although historians, with some help from retired justices, have provided limited details. Readers are introduced to the fictional members of the Court, each justice having character traits and identifiers to make them very similar to the real-life members. Justice Rodney Sykes is the author’s Clarence Thomas; Justice Sarah Kolman his Ruth Bader Ginsburg; and Justice Killian Quinn his Antonin Scalia. None are identical clones, but each has sufficient identifying characteristics to make anyone with knowledge of the Supreme Court recognize who Piatigorsky has in mind as he moves the Al-Tounsi case through the Court’s legal workings.

AL-TOUNSI spends a great deal of time telling us about the lives of each justice and how their life experience influences their decision-making process. While these biographical sketches of the characters sometimes devolve into minutiae and cause the pace of the novel to slow down, they also serve to remind readers of the human quality of a judicial life, which is one of the unique and illuminating aspects of the book. Instead of a courtroom novel asking whodunit, Piatigorsky tells us how and why it was done. Along the way, we can gain much insight into the workings of the Supreme Court. Justices have often observed that the crucial number on the Court is five. Once you reach that number of justices in agreement on any legal issue, you have the power to influence the course of jurisprudence in our nation.

Many times, personal lives, career rivalries, political sympathies and legal philosophy dictate the outcome of Supreme Court decisions. And sometimes there is just an occasional horse trade. AL-TOUNSI is fiction, and in courtroom fiction plot often trumps the truth. But Piatigorsky reminds us that for better or worse, before men or women are judges, they are human beings with the same strengths and weaknesses as any of us. As the Supreme Court appears to be embarking upon the perilous legal journeys in the coming months and years, it is important that we acknowledge the human frailties of the nine justices.