The Trial of Callista Blake

"I would like to have everyone who is interested in the administration of justice read this book – twice." – Erle Stanley Gardner

In 1959, in the state of New Essex, a witch was on trial. Or so she seemed to many of the jurors who would ultimately decide her fate, and to the people who thronged the crowded courtroom, many of them friends of the murdered woman. On trial for poisoning her former lover's wife, she would – if found guilty – be executed.

Callista Blake, nineteen years old, has a very slight physical deformity, and the much greater mental ones of apparent aloofness, fierce independence of mind, a laconic and sometimes sarcastic wit, marked but unconventional artistic talent, avowed atheism, and a complete inability to compromise.

Edgar Pangborn knows and understands the people he writes about.  And with irresistible force he shows that no one is good enough or wise enough to hold the power of life and death.