Gerry Spence, one of America's most famous trial lawyers and author of the bestselling How to Argue and Win Every Time, discusses his highly-acclaimed first novel, Half-Moon and Empty Stars, a masterful courtroom thriller and a haunting elegy for Native America.  

With taut, gripping prose, Gerry Spence, the great American trial lawyer, has crafted a compelling family drama centered around the death penalty. No reader will be left unshaken by the devastating ending.-- Vincent Bugliosi, author of Helter Skelter and Outrage

This is the story of twin brothers, half Arapaho, half white set in a small Wyoming town. One goes the way of the Native American, the other the way of the well-heeled investment banker. Murder results and Abner Hill, a country lawyer tries to save Charlie Redtail, the Native American brother from the gas chamber "It is an astonishing book that only a man who has spent his life fighting for justice could have written," says Tom Schulman, Academy Award winning writer of Dead Poets Society and president of the Writer's Guild Foundation.

Gerry Spence's Half-Moon and Empty Stars relates the gripping love stories of two women -- Charlie Redtail's mother and his woman, Willow -- who struggle, each in her own way, to save Charlie from the gas chamber. It is the story of brothers, half-blooded Arapahoe twins: Charlie, who goes the way of the Native American, and Billy, who becomes a wealthy Wall Street banker, resulting in a conflict of cultures that explodes in murder. Charlie is dragged to trial in a small, prejudiced backwater Wyoming town, a trial that erupts into an astonishing courtroom drama that only Gerry Spence, with his intimate knowledge of murder trials, could tell.

Can Abner Hill, a deeply principled small-town lawyer who has fallen in love with Charlie's mother, fight the state's perjured testimony with his own false witnesses to save Charlie Redtail? Which is more important, the life of a "breed Indian, a dog-eater," or the economic betterment of the town and the political career of the governor?

With a superb sense of drama and an intimate knowledge of how the court system really works in the face of power and politics, Gerry Spence has crafted a sensational legal thriller that is also a compelling family drama. This is a remarkable first novel that penetrates deeply into the very roots of our lives and our system, that relentlessly probes life, death, justice, and, at last, the infinite power of love.

"This richly textured page-turner kept me on the edge of my seat until the dramatic-unexpected-conclusion says Alan Dershowitz, Professor, Harvard Law School, and author of The Genesis of Justice. "More than a courtroom thriller, Half Moon and Empty Stars takes you on a journey into the soul of a lawyer, and the 'half breed' client he is trying to save from the gas chamber. It also provides a rare insider's look into the criminal justice system by one who has seen it up close and is willing to blow the whistle on all its participants."

Courtesy of the UCSB Bookstore, copies of Half-Moon and Empty Stars and Seven Steps to Personal Freedom, and An Owner's Manual for Life will be available for puirchase and signing at this event.

This event is cosponsored by the UCSB Bookstore and Interdisciplinary Humanities Center.