Feldman, Ellen

Alice Whittier, a crusading young journalist in 1931, leaves New York and travels to Scottsboro, Alabama, to cover the trial of nine African-American boys who have been accused of raping two white prostitutes who happened to be riding on the same freight train as the boys.

Presents a novel based on the premise that Peter Van Pels, who lived in the annex with Anne Frank during World War II, survived the Holocaust and moved to America.

Bailey Bender, plagued by regrets about the baby she gave up for adoption years earlier, flees her job, her marriage, and life in New York City and retreats to the Hamptons where she becomes caught up in the scandal that has erupted over the tragic death of a nineteen-year-old girl.

Uses historical figures and fictional characters to trace the progression of the 1931 Scottsboro trial, during which nine black youths were accused of raping two white girls, and a series of figures from both sides of the case vied to either save the boys or condemn them to death.