Paul asked Gabriel Boutros:

Did you, as a criminal lawyer play any part in the defence or of a prosecution of the part, in the referenced loosely based case of which your first book was loosely based on. If so, did that case trouble you to the point of finding the need to express yourself?

Gabriel Boutros Hi Paul, In the "real world" I was a defence attorney in a shooting that was similar to the one in the book. (There were actually 3 shooters and 4 victims, one of whom survived to testify against the accused. I reduced the number of each in the book because too many characters would have made the story unwieldy for me, a first-time novelist.) Some of the differences from the book:: none of the co-accused made deals to testify against the others; we had no alibi witnesses, false or otherwise; and my client was a pleasant young man who was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, and was very easy to get along with.
The things I found troubling as a lawyer were not from this specific case, but rather things I saw and heard over the years. They never made me doubt myself, because I never felt I crossed any ethical lines, but I knew they would make for a dramatic story.
Thanks for an excellent question and for taking an interest in my book.
Gabriel
(By the way, my client was the only one of the three co-accused to be found not-guilty.)

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