NEW RELEASE
Trading Innocence
Trading Innocence is the third book in the Matt Jamison series—a courtroom legal thriller series in which a young prosecutor steps out from the black-and-white world of law school to explore the concept of justice in the shades-of-gray criminal justice system. In Trading Innocence, Matt Jamison and his investigators are confronted with protecting two young girls from the dark world of international sex trafficking. After escaping from their captors, the girls face a web of vicious criminals who are determined to exploit them for money and pleasure. Can Jamison and his investigators keep them safe? Full of unexpected twists and turns, it delivers a captivating tale of innocence lost and a justice system struggling to protect the most vulnerable.
Finalist in the Thriller/Crime category of the 2022 American Fiction Awards
Honorable Mention in the General Fiction category of the 2022 Paris Book Festival Awards
“All stories are a journey down a road with the ending just over the horizon. I try to write books that are worth the journey.”
About James Ardaiz
James Ardaiz is a retired judge and former prosecutor who set out to write books that would leave readers thinking about the stories he told and the dilemmas his characters faced. He wanted readers to close the last pages of his books and then say, “Is that what I would have done?” With his first book, Hands Through Stone, he takes readers through an actual major criminal investigation resulting in the last execution in the state of California and the impact on the men and women involved.
Told in narrative non-fiction style, it is like reading a novel that allows the reader to stand in the shoes of those who spent twenty-six years seeking justice and how it affected them.
“Ardaiz’s writing about police work is in depth…The final chapter was thought-provoking and put a different perspective on the death penalty…had me thinking about the book long after I had finished it.”
-TrueCrimeReader.com
“A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, ‘The one I feed the most.'”
- George Bernard Shaw (from the opening pages of Shades of Truth)
2022 Silver Medalist for National Historical Novel of the Year, American Association of Independent Publishers
“This authentic, intelligent and gripping novel of courtroom suspense dares to profoundly examine the elusiveness of truth – legally, psychologically, morally – in order to explore the meaning of justice for terrifying crimes. The reader is kept off-balance to the last pages and pondering far beyond that.”
- Joseph Wambaugh, Author: The Onion Field, The New Centurions
