Cross Justice

by James Patterson

Alex Cross and his family, who live in Washington, D.C., travel to Starksville, North Carolina, so Alex and his wife Bree can help clear Alex's cousin Stefan Tate of a murder they suspect he did not commit. Stefan, a school teacher, is on trial for supposedly murdering Rashawn Turnbull, a boy in his class, and almost everyone in town is convinced he's guilty and wants him to hang. Alex has not been to Starksville since leaving as a child thirty-five years ago. The Cross family has not found the town to be welcoming to them, partly because they are there to help clear Stefan.

Alex travels to Belle Glade, Florida, to get information on his father, who was said to have committed suicide near there. He meets a veteran Palm Beach County, Florida, sergeant, who is convinced Alex can help him catch a brutal serial killer in Palm Beach County. It turns out that the sergeant is Alex's long-lost father Jason. Meanwhile, Alex looks into Marvin Bell, a local businessman who has had dubious influence on the Cross family during Alex's childhood and is said to have orchestrated Jason Cross's fake death.

After investigation, it turns out that Bell teamed up with Rashawn's maternal grandparents to ship a highly potent addictive drug across the South and were making large profits off of this drug. Rashawn's grandfather had killed Rashawn due to feeling shameful about the child's mixed heritage, then pinned it on Stefan since the latter had been investigating into the Starksville drug trade. It is also discovered that the entire judicial system of Starksville had been under FBI investigation for corruption. Following the incident, the FBI moves in and arrests all the judges in Starksville, with Stefan's case being dropped.