A little dated now,this book came out in the late 1990's and seems to have come out of a "what if?" extension of the OJ Simpson trials. That's not all bad and there is a fair amount of detailed Grisham-type court room procedural here. The actual case seems fairly straightforward and really doesn't seem much of a mystery and sort of plods along in the middle third. However, the final story arc does come up with a satisfying half-twist, once Sawyer decides to put some science into this fiction. The aliens are suitably alien, the main human characters are nice, brainy folk and all in all a good, not great, novel.