We highly recommend Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

Reviewer: Mark Lamendola

This book was a gift to me from an organization whose conference I spoke at in Savannah, GA. At first glance, I thought it was fiction. It wasn't. I had to keep reminding myself of this as I read. What a fascinating story! Imagine being tried for murder four times--for the same killing. That's what Jim Williams endured for nearly a decade--including eight years of prison until his final trial.

The characters in this account of a landmark murder case are real, but most are so eccentric that they seem like actors in a Monty Python skit. Berendt caught all the colorful details for the reader. As usual in America, justice is hard to get. In Williams' case, his personal proclivities made it impossible for him to get a fair trial in Savannah.

The personalities include a black pre-op transexual drag queen (who later went on to become a minor celebrity), a young redneck testosterone-soaked bisexual gigolo (who was murdered), a voodoo priestess, a piano-playing con artist attorney who doesn't pay his bills, a glory-seeking political schemer, a grossly incompetent and dishonest District Attorney, and other people who aren't exactly normal.

You can think of this book as a "true crime" story--with much of the crime actually being in the legal system. It's a riveting, and sometimes hilarious, page-turner. It takes you inside the various hidden agendas, secret attacks, oddball alliances, and crafty schemes that occupy the minds of people in a town where secrets are well-known and everyone knows everyone else's business.

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