The Professor (McMurtie & Drake) - Softcover

Winston Groom, author of Forrest Gump: "The Professor is that rare combination of thrills, chills and heart. Gripping from the first page to the last." Brian Haig (Sean Drummond series): "Legal thrillers shouldn't be this much fun and a new writer shouldn't be this good at crafting a great twisty story. If you enjoy Grisham as much as I do, you're going to love Bob Bailey." William Bernhardt (Ben Kincaid series): "R.N.Bailey is a Southern writer in the great Southern tradition, with a vivid sense of his environment and characters that pop and crackle on the page. This book kept me hooked all the way through." "Taut, page-turning, and smart, The Professor is a legal thriller that will keep readers up late as the twists and turns keep coming. Set in Alabama, it also includes that state's greatest icon, one Coach Bear Bryant. In fact, the Bear gets things going with the energy of an Alabama kickoff to Auburn. Robert Bailey knows his state and he knows his law. He also knows how to write characters that are real, sympathetic, and surprising. If he keeps writing novels this good, he's got quite a literary career before him." Homer Hickam, author of Rocket Boys/October Sky, New York Times Number 1 bestseller.

"It was the trial they were both meant to lose..." A retired Professor of Law who hasn't tried a real case in forty years teams up with a former student who's yet to trial a case at all, in order to clear both of their names. The Professor introduces Thomas Jackson McMurtrie, a longtime law professor at the University of Alabama, who, 40 years after giving up a promising career as a trial lawyer to teach law students at the request of his mentor, Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant, retires to his farm an angry and bitter man, betrayed by both a Board member he mistook for a friend and his own failing health. Meanwhile, the young family of one of Tom's oldest friends is killed in a tragic collision with an 18-wheeler. Believing his career is over, Tom refers his friend to a brilliant, yet beleaguered, former student, Rick Drake, who begins to uncover that the truth behind the tragedy is buried in a tangled web of arson, bribery and greed. When a key witness is murdered on the eve of trial, the young attorney, in over his head and at the end of his rope, knows he needs help - and there's only one man who can help him. The Professor is the first in a series of tense legal thriller featuring the unusual and compelling legal team of McMurtie & Drake, combining the thrills and authenticity of a John Grisham novel for the audience that flocked to Friday Night Lights.