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Ben Kincaid #6
Naked Justice
As Tulsa's first black mayor and a former college football hero, Wallace Barrett was a city treasure--until he became the prime suspect in the gruesome murder of his wife and two daughters. Seen splattered with blood and fleeing his house after the crime, the mayor needs a miracle. Enter Ben Kincaid.
While Kincaid may not be the slickest attorney in Tulsa, he has a knack for pulling off the impossible. But with a frenzied media, a string of damning expert witnesses for the prosecution, and surprise testimony that could rip right through Kincaid's already tenuous defense, impossible never looked so tough.
While Kincaid may not be the slickest attorney in Tulsa, he has a knack for pulling off the impossible. But with a frenzied media, a string of damning expert witnesses for the prosecution, and surprise testimony that could rip right through Kincaid's already tenuous defense, impossible never looked so tough.
437 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
428 people are currently reading
440 people want to read
About the author
William Bernhardt
99 books513 followersWilliam Bernhardt is the author of over sixty books, including the bestselling Daniel Pike and Ben Kincaid legal thrillers, the historical novels Challengers of the Dust and Nemesis, three books of poetry, and the ten Red Sneaker books on fiction writing.
In addition, Bernhardt founded the Red Sneaker Writers Center to mentor aspiring writers. The Center hosts an annual writers conference (WriterCon), small-group seminars, a monthly newsletter, and a bi-weekly podcast. More than three dozen of Bernhardt’s students have subsequently published with major houses. He is also the owner of Balkan Press, which publishes poetry and fiction as well as the literary journal Conclave.
Bernhardt has received the Southern Writers Guild’s Gold Medal Award, the Royden B. Davis Distinguished Author Award (University of Pennsylvania) and the H. Louise Cobb Distinguished Author Award (Oklahoma State), which is given "in recognition of an outstanding body of work that has profoundly influenced the way in which we understand ourselves and American society at large." He has been nominated for the Oklahoma Book Award eighteen times in three different categories, and has won the award twice. Library Journal called him “the master of the courtroom drama.” The Vancouver Sun called him “the American equivalent of P.G. Wodehouse and John Mortimer.”
In addition to his novels and poetry, he has written plays, a musical (book and score), humor, children stories, biography, and puzzles. He has edited two anthologies (Legal Briefs and Natural Suspect) as fundraisers for The Nature Conservancy and the Children’s Legal Defense Fund. OSU named him “Oklahoma’s Renaissance Man.”
In his spare time, he has enjoyed surfing, digging for dinosaurs, trekking through the Himalayas, paragliding, scuba diving, caving, zip-lining over the canopy of the Costa Rican rain forest, and jumping out of an airplane at 10,000 feet. In 2013, he became a Jeopardy! champion winning over $20,000.
When Bernhardt delivered the keynote address at the San Francisco Writers Conference, chairman Michael Larsen noted that in addition to penning novels, Bernhardt can “write a sonnet, play a sonata, plant a garden, try a lawsuit, teach a class, cook a gourmet meal, beat you at Scrabble, and work the New York Times crossword in under five minutes.”
In addition, Bernhardt founded the Red Sneaker Writers Center to mentor aspiring writers. The Center hosts an annual writers conference (WriterCon), small-group seminars, a monthly newsletter, and a bi-weekly podcast. More than three dozen of Bernhardt’s students have subsequently published with major houses. He is also the owner of Balkan Press, which publishes poetry and fiction as well as the literary journal Conclave.
Bernhardt has received the Southern Writers Guild’s Gold Medal Award, the Royden B. Davis Distinguished Author Award (University of Pennsylvania) and the H. Louise Cobb Distinguished Author Award (Oklahoma State), which is given "in recognition of an outstanding body of work that has profoundly influenced the way in which we understand ourselves and American society at large." He has been nominated for the Oklahoma Book Award eighteen times in three different categories, and has won the award twice. Library Journal called him “the master of the courtroom drama.” The Vancouver Sun called him “the American equivalent of P.G. Wodehouse and John Mortimer.”
In addition to his novels and poetry, he has written plays, a musical (book and score), humor, children stories, biography, and puzzles. He has edited two anthologies (Legal Briefs and Natural Suspect) as fundraisers for The Nature Conservancy and the Children’s Legal Defense Fund. OSU named him “Oklahoma’s Renaissance Man.”
In his spare time, he has enjoyed surfing, digging for dinosaurs, trekking through the Himalayas, paragliding, scuba diving, caving, zip-lining over the canopy of the Costa Rican rain forest, and jumping out of an airplane at 10,000 feet. In 2013, he became a Jeopardy! champion winning over $20,000.
When Bernhardt delivered the keynote address at the San Francisco Writers Conference, chairman Michael Larsen noted that in addition to penning novels, Bernhardt can “write a sonnet, play a sonata, plant a garden, try a lawsuit, teach a class, cook a gourmet meal, beat you at Scrabble, and work the New York Times crossword in under five minutes.”
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews
April 4, 2025
Not his best book but still a good story.
October 11, 2020
As with all the previous books in the series this one has a lot of twists terms and surprises. I got a admit that I was pretty sure I knew who the stocker was from the start and that’s OK because you get enough clues. But the trial… That was interesting. Lots of different things going on and miss directions that were obviously deliver it. In the end although I wasn’t surprised there were parts of it they did surprise me. And if you’ve read the book you’ll know what I’m talking about. I enjoyed seeing Joey and Ben’s interactions with him. I’m hoping we continue to see a lot of him as well as the other characters. Ben sure does have a motley Crue of employees and friends and they mesh together very well. The author does a great job with them and as usual I’m looking forward to reading the next installment in the series.
June 28, 2023
Fickle Morpheus abandoned me in the night. So, between 2:30 and 7 a.m., I read this book and enjoyed it immensely.
Tulsa fictional attorney Ben Kincaid can’t pay his staff as the book opens. He’s taking care of his flaky sister’s toddler because she abandoned it, and the child is extremely unresponsive. Then, he gets the break of his legal life when the black mayor of the city, a former football jock, asks Kincaid to defend him from a murder charge. The state has accused him of killing his wife and two daughters. The guy has a history of wife beating and child abuse, and it looks like Kincaid will easily lose this one.
The courtroom drama here is fantastic, and it kept me thoroughly awake and involved. I’m impressed with the author’s ability to create a hopeless situation that somehow turns out ok for Kincaid. This is a great book filled with likable characters. It’s probably best if you start at the beginning of this series, but if series reading turns you off, you can read this and lean into that courtroom drama stuff. It’s excellently written. I liked this book so well I’m going to read the next one in the series immediately instead of using my usual three-months-between-series installment rule.
Tulsa fictional attorney Ben Kincaid can’t pay his staff as the book opens. He’s taking care of his flaky sister’s toddler because she abandoned it, and the child is extremely unresponsive. Then, he gets the break of his legal life when the black mayor of the city, a former football jock, asks Kincaid to defend him from a murder charge. The state has accused him of killing his wife and two daughters. The guy has a history of wife beating and child abuse, and it looks like Kincaid will easily lose this one.
The courtroom drama here is fantastic, and it kept me thoroughly awake and involved. I’m impressed with the author’s ability to create a hopeless situation that somehow turns out ok for Kincaid. This is a great book filled with likable characters. It’s probably best if you start at the beginning of this series, but if series reading turns you off, you can read this and lean into that courtroom drama stuff. It’s excellently written. I liked this book so well I’m going to read the next one in the series immediately instead of using my usual three-months-between-series installment rule.
July 17, 2018
If the plot line had revolved around the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard of proof, then this would have been worthy of the high rating it has garnered from me. But it did not. It added a subplot of Kincaid being stalked by an avenger of a crime committed by his father that had nothing to do with the story line. The focus should have been the trial, which the author narrates with adeptness, skill, and realism, but he added an ending that unnecessarily went too far. Leaving it all go at Kincaid discovering, post-trial, that his client had a vasectomy and leaving the doubt to linger would have been sufficient and, IMHO, better. Instead the author has to solve all mysteries and pervert the plot line from "reasonable doubt" to the failure of the court system. This could have been a novel worth of a 4.0 but instead, for me, it barely rates a 2.75.
November 9, 2023
this is the 9th book, by this author that I have read. Most, if not all, have been the Ben Kincaid series and I can tell you that they are all great. I highly suggest this series.
"As Tulsa's first black mayor and a former college football hero, Wallace Barrett was a city treasure--until he became the prime suspect in the gruesome murder of his wife and two daughters. Seen splattered with blood and fleeing his house after the crime, the mayor needs a miracle. Enter Ben Kincaid.
While Kincaid may not be the slickest attorney in Tulsa, he has a knack for pulling off the impossible. But with a frenzied media, a string of damning expert witnesses for the prosecution, and surprise testimony that could rip right through Kincaid's already tenuous defense, impossible never looked so tough."
"As Tulsa's first black mayor and a former college football hero, Wallace Barrett was a city treasure--until he became the prime suspect in the gruesome murder of his wife and two daughters. Seen splattered with blood and fleeing his house after the crime, the mayor needs a miracle. Enter Ben Kincaid.
While Kincaid may not be the slickest attorney in Tulsa, he has a knack for pulling off the impossible. But with a frenzied media, a string of damning expert witnesses for the prosecution, and surprise testimony that could rip right through Kincaid's already tenuous defense, impossible never looked so tough."
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June 8, 2024I have such an odd experience with this series. When I look at the book jacket information or read reviews, I immediately decide to read the books; when I do though, I am generally disappointed. This one, in which Kincaid defends a former football hero and current town mayor who is suspected of killing his wife and kids, was better than the rest, though the parts about his personal life were often over the top. This was good enough that I am now reading the next entry in the series. It's pretty good, but there are so many other series that I enjoy more that I will probably stop following this one.
October 29, 2025
The main character of this book is Benjamin Kincaid, a struggling lawyer who has taken up the case of Wallace Barret, the mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma who has been accused of brutally killing his wife and daughters. All the evidence is pointing in the direction of the mayor and it is Ben Kincaid's job to prove to the jury that he is not guilty.
This was the first time I read a book by this author, and it was ok.
You will like this book if you like courtroom dramas.
This was the first time I read a book by this author, and it was ok.
You will like this book if you like courtroom dramas.
December 21, 2021
Lawyer Ben Kincaid is back again. Bernhardt's books always have a great story with great characters and this one is no exception. (I'm also fond of his little asides and treats sprinkled throughout this stories.) In Naked Justice, Ben's client is the mayor who's accused of brutally murdering his wife and two precious daughters. And, there's so much more. (reviewed in 1996)
January 29, 2022
Couldn't Put It Down
This was the most riveting Ben Kincaid novel so far in the series. The courtroom drama was exceptional and that is what I like the most in the author's books. Ben is a tough legal defense counselor, but has a fragile personality in many respects. I feel that endearing quality makes him relatable to the reader. Highly recommend!
This was the most riveting Ben Kincaid novel so far in the series. The courtroom drama was exceptional and that is what I like the most in the author's books. Ben is a tough legal defense counselor, but has a fragile personality in many respects. I feel that endearing quality makes him relatable to the reader. Highly recommend!
September 17, 2023
3.5 stars rounded up due to last half being hard to put down. The first half dragged and had me wondering why there were flashbacks to Ben's relationship with his father. It wasn't until near the end that it was made clear. Still enjoy Ben and his group of co-workers and friends. Looking forward to book # 7.
May 26, 2017
Ben and his team defend the Mayor of Tulsa, accused of killing his wife and 2 small children. Plot twists galore. with the exception of the subplot about Ben's long dead father, this was a winner. Still a good read. will read the remainder of the series.
August 28, 2021
Fantastic courtroom drama about a lawyer defending a mayor charged with murder. The author expertly wrote the dialogue between the lawyers and the witnesses. The reader could feel the tension during some of the questioning. This was a complex novel made easy to follow by the author's prose.
July 28, 2022
Suspicions confirmed....kinda'
A real roller coaster ride with plenty of twists and turns, heights and depths. The ending came and went, then came again. An enjoyable read, even with the somewhat flawed Ben character. Too touchy feely at times, but all in all, he's a survivor.
A real roller coaster ride with plenty of twists and turns, heights and depths. The ending came and went, then came again. An enjoyable read, even with the somewhat flawed Ben character. Too touchy feely at times, but all in all, he's a survivor.
February 22, 2025
Hard to put down once you get into it.
The writing is not up to the caliber of some writers, but it certainly was well enough written to get my interest.
Enough twists and turns to keep me interested even when I knew something was coming up.
The writing is not up to the caliber of some writers, but it certainly was well enough written to get my interest.
Enough twists and turns to keep me interested even when I knew something was coming up.
October 24, 2017
More great Kincaid
August 4, 2018
Really undecided about how I feel about this book.
August 7, 2019
Ben Kincaid defends the mayor who is accused of murdering his wife and two daughters. The trial is on TV, etc. and closely resembles that of the OJ Simpson trial.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 27, 2019
Another good one; intriguing, with a couple of unexpected twists are the end!!!
May 13, 2021
Great storyline
I really enjoyed this book. Great characters and storylines, never dull, a real exciting conclusion. Can't wait to see what lies ahead for Ben.
I really enjoyed this book. Great characters and storylines, never dull, a real exciting conclusion. Can't wait to see what lies ahead for Ben.
July 24, 2021
Loved it beginning to end!
June 19, 2022
One of his best!
November 7, 2022
Another damned good tale!
Can hardly wait for the next. Although I need a break from this genre. But I will be bad kept.
Can hardly wait for the next. Although I need a break from this genre. But I will be bad kept.
April 6, 2023
I am loving this series and this is the best one yet! Many twists and turns. So good!
December 12, 2023
Good read
April 7, 2024
Another great Ben Kincaid book with a surprise ending. Great courtroom drama.
November 20, 2025
Excellent read. It actually had too many twists and turns! Good character development and dialogue.
October 14, 2013
William Bernhardt continues to impress me with how he increases the depth of his stories with each book. Naked Justice is tight, exciting, and delicately weaves a complex tapestry of violence, family, racism, power politics, teen angst, motherly protection, father/son issues and so much more. Ben Kinkaid is really growing in expertise both in the courtroom and with his nephew Joey. We see even farther into the psyche of this excellent attorney and emotionally challenged individual and, with each glimpse, we understand and like him more. NIcely drawn subplots and tasty red herrings in this one, keep the reader guessing. The excellent conclusion ties multiple strands together at just the right time. I look forward to reading these books in the same way I look forward to a long visit with a good friend. Rewarding at multiple levels. I am ready for the next in the series. I know that I'm way behind many of Bernhardt's fans, but it just means I'II have more new joys in store.
August 7, 2017
Another good installment in the series. I have to admit that I find this series somewhat predictable; however, I still find them enjoyable. The books are filled with interesting characters who I find myself wanting to learn more about.
These are reasonably fast paced (but for some reason this one took me 8 days to read) but this one might have been a tad slower than the previous novels in the series.
If you like detective stories and or legal thrillers (or even better both) this is a series I think you will enjoy.
These are reasonably fast paced (but for some reason this one took me 8 days to read) but this one might have been a tad slower than the previous novels in the series.
If you like detective stories and or legal thrillers (or even better both) this is a series I think you will enjoy.
June 1, 2010
Ben Kincaid is back in this novel with his entourage of funny, warm, lovable coworkers/friends. The characters are up to it again: a race against time to save another man's life from jail or worse...but was it worth it? The absolutely unexpected, explosive conclusion of this astonishing courtroom drama will answer that question...and many more.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews