Scott Turow meets Raymond Chandler in this moody, gritty legal noir about Santi, an idealistic young man who returns home to Reno, Nevada, to work as a public defender and gets embroiled in a murder case he cannot shake—by a critically acclaimed writer who is also a public defender.

What if justice isn’t something the legal system is truly capable of?

Set in Reno, Nevada, The Silver State follows the career of a public defender from his first years as an idealistic law school graduate, through the cases that chip away at his belief in the very work he was so drawn to. When Santi receives a letter from a former client now on death row, he is forced to reexamine his role in the case he’ll never recover from.

The letter is from death row inmate Michael Atwood, convicted almost a decade earlier of murdering Anna Weston, whose body was found on a roadside near Reno’s infamous silver mines. The public had been obsessed with the disappearance of Anna, a pretty young mother, and the cops were under tremendous pressure to make an arrest. Atwood is linked to the murder by scant physical or testimonial evidence, and as the case moves quickly towards trial Santi and his mentor in the public defender's office, C.J., become increasingly convinced that they are representing an innocent man. And Santi, meanwhile, almost sacrifices everything good in his life—love, family, friendship—for what may be a lost cause.

With an author who is also a criminal defense attorney, The Silver State brings to vivid life the seamy deals that get cut in the name of justice. And as this gritty novel, populated by drifters, petty criminals, and jaded lawyers who like drinking and fishing a lot more than they like their clients, moves from the casinos of Reno to its desert outskirts, Urza pulls off a full-of-surprises tale of justice gone awry.