Closer to home than I would like, The Final Case is a fictionalized account of a tragic 2011 homicide in Skagit County involving a white conservative fundamentalist Christian couple who adopted a girl from Ethiopia. The defense attorney is a reflection of legendary Seattle defense attorney Murray Guterson, the author’s father. The first-person narrator is a Seattle author who becomes his father’s chauffeur between Seattle and Skagit County.
The attorney is an octogenarian who should be retired and, in fact, dies in the courthouse during the trial. I’m not sure why that plot twist is necessary, but it prompts the family to conduct a retrospective review of his law office records. Eventually, we get back to the criminal case and the ultimate jury conviction of the parents responsible for the abuse and death of their adopted daughter. In the final chapters, the author points out that the adopting couple is so fundamentalist that they cannot find a suitable church, so they form a self-directed religious cult. He also explains the flaw in the adoption system that allows unsuitable people to adopt children from foreign countries by hiding who they are behind claims of privacy.