A Knock at Midnight

Karen Chilton brings a real talent for dialogue to her narration, making this memoir especially engaging. Brittany Barnett rose from her East Texas roots to become a successful lawyer working a corporate day job. She also worked to free from prison those suffering under draconian drug, conspiracy, and sentencing laws that hit Black populations especially hard. Barnett learned about prison in childhood--her own mother was, for a time, an incarcerated drug addict. Chilton captures the strong relationships that developed between Barnett and her clients. Her effective use of pitch and speech patterns makes those clients seem real and multifaceted. In sum, Chilton gives a strong performance of an absorbing story. G.S. � AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine