Books: A Criminal's Best Friend

FINAL VERDICT (512 pp.)—Adela Rogers St. Johns—Doubleday ($5.95).

Many of the great criminal lawyers are as famous for their dramatic ability as for their legal skills. But none ever made a courtroom more theatrical than Earl Rogers, a dandyish, hard-drinking, devil-may-care Californian who practiced at the turn of the century. Rogers won acquittals no one thought possible with courtroom antics never seen before—and no longer tolerated in today's courts. And Rogers was, by common consent, the fastest tongue in the West.

No one could be indifferent to Rogers. His biographer and only daughter, Adela...

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