Robak in Black

A Don Robak Mystery #13

by Joe L. Hensley

Five years ago, Don Robak set aside his practice as an attorney to take up a new one - that of judge. But his wife Jo is suddenly stricken with a strange illness that leaves her robbed of much of her memory, strength, and in need of professional care and leaves Don alone, bereft, and convinced that Jo's illness was a planned attack and not an accident of fate. Though he lacks evidence, Robak has plenty of suspects of whom the major ones include the Wolfers, a local clan of tax rebels whose patriarch Damion Darius Wolf is out for revenge after Judge Robak sentenced his son to death. The other is Libby Macing, the daughter and principle of local powerhouse Macing Drugs, with whom Robak was once involved and now is part of a lawsuit against Macing Drugs that is being tried in Robak's court.

It soon becomes clear that something nefarious is going on, that some tie exists between the much feared Wolfers and their opposite on the social scale, the Macing clan. As threats against Robak and his sick wife persist and intensify, Robak finds his old instincts beginning to kick in. Determined to remain impartial during the trial being heard before him, he is equally determined to find out the truth of the situation before he and his loved ones fall victim to whomever is pulling the strings behind the scene.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published December 18, 2001

About the author

Joseph Louis "Joe L." Hensley (March 19, 1926 - August 27, 2007) was a lawyer, prosecuting attorney, member of the Indiana General Assembly, circuit court judge, science fiction fan, and writer of science fiction and mysteries. He was a long-time resident of Madison, Indiana and died there of complications of leukemia.

The story "Killer Scent" was erroneously attributed to Joe E. Hensley in Alfred Hitchcock's A Choice of Evils

He also published as Louis J. A. Adams, J. L. Hensley and Joe Hensley