«Eclipse» by Richard North Patterson

In a novel of international intrigue, an American lawyer, Damon Pierce, attempts to save Bobby Okari, the West African leader of a protest movement, from execution by the country’s corrupt and autocratic leader. Pierce is in a race against time, and as the complex trial—involving terrorism and the geopolitics of oil, missing witnesses and evidence, and the whims of a lawless country—unfolds, bodies fall and fates dangle.

Complicating matters further is Okari’s wife, Marissa Brand, with whom Pierce had a relationship years before that he’s never quite forgotten; she, in fact, persuaded him to take the case in the first place, and it is who she plays a crucial role in the eventual outcome of this taut and atmospheric novel.