Seraphim

May 6, 2024
A teenager stands accused of killing a Hurricane Katrina aid worker in former New Orleans public defender Perry’s promising debut. Ben Alder, a rabbinical seminary student turned defense attorney, is assigned the case of 16-year-old Robert Johnson, who has confessed to shooting 36-year-old restaurateur Lillie Scott in early 2008. Scott had become well-known for leading post-hurricane recovery efforts in the Seventh Ward, and her killing has shaken the city. As Ben learns more about Robert and his father, who’s serving life in prison for a series of minor offenses, he comes to believe that, though the teenager was discovered with the weapon that killed Scott, he may have been set up to take the fall. Determined to prove Robert innocent and enhance his own reputation, Ben plunges into the city’s underbelly, and faces a crisis of faith in the process. Perry’s focus is less on the murder mystery than on the rhythms of post-Katrina New Orleans and Ben’s shifting psychology, which he explores with often-breathtaking prose (“There’s a terror of seeing, the vacancy that isn’t and the emptiness that is,” Ben muses, comparing himself to the Seraphim, six-winged angels that shield their eyes from God). Crime fiction fans will be eager to see what Perry does next. Agent: Janet Oshiro, Robbins Office.

Starred review from June 1, 2024
Unlike many legal procedurals written by outsiders that are imaginative but thin on expertise, this insider's mystery has the ring of actual, hard-won, brutal experience. Perry served as a New Orleans public defender for 10 years after Hurricane Katrina and ran the only specialized juvenile justice civil rights law office in the Deep South. When Perry writes of sadistic police, uncaring judges, and gridlocked social services, he does so with the kind of detail only years of up-close observation can produce. The title of this debut novel refers to the fiery Old Testament angels whose mission is to protect. Here, the seraphim are two Jewish lawyers from the East who swoop into New Orleans three years after Katrina, determined to give juveniles accused of crimes the best defenses possible in the outlandishly creaky system semi-operating in a city staggering toward recovery. The case assigned to main character Ben and sidekick Boris seems hopeless. A 16-year-old male has just given a recorded confession to the murder of a New Orleans heroine, a woman who had just re-opened her previously devastated restaurant. It's fascinating to see public defenders' careful steps amid the obstacles stonewalling cops and corrupt judges put in their way. This beautifully written mystery-meditation on a failed justice system is tragic and inspiring.

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