Out of the Darkness
New attorney Micah McConners returns to his hometown of Probity, Wyoming in the late summer of 1900. He is greeted by his boyhood friend, Chester Hedstrom, MD. As Micah tries to reconnect with his former girlfriend and re-establish himself in the community, he has no idea that his first big case will involve his best friend. A disgruntled former employee decides to turn in the physician after he violates the law to help a domestic violence victim. Micah is up against the local politicians who are bent on teaching Chester a lesson.
The plot’s main event, Dr. Hedstrom’s trial, takes up approximately a third of the book, which consigns a lot of space to background material. When the verdict is announced, it feels hollow and inauthentic for the time period. There are several key issues touched upon here, but none of them are given enough space to really open a window into early 20th-century Wyoming life.
