More Rich in Hope — Gary Blackburn

Jonathan Moyer has it all: a successful legal career, a loving family, and now a summons to high office in the fictional country where this elegant novel takes place. The problem is, the leader he'll serve has taken power by fraudulent means, and Jonathan's main charge will be to use the courts to suppress a growing dissident movement. At first, it's a job he can live with, but soon he's forced to conduct mere show trials, and then no trials at all. Too proud to quit, he becomes complicit in the very repression he despises. Appalled by how he's changed, friends and relatives desert him. Then comes the telling blow: His daughter is killed in a protest march. He makes a furtive attempt to switch sides, but is apprehended and sentenced to life imprisonment. Resigned to his fate, he begins his term. But hardly has he begun when his world's turned upside down again: He's told he can have his freedom back - if he'll agree to infiltrate the resistance as a double agent. He reluctantly accepts, and enters a shadowy life of espionage and political intrigue that ultimately leads to the dictator's demise. More Rich in Hope is written in the style of a bygone era, calling to mind the classic sagas of the 19th century, as Jonathan, having lost everything, struggles to restore his family, his fortunes, and his sacred honor.