J. Caleb Cunningham’s engaging memoir recounts his years in Missouri’s rural Camden County Prosecutor’s Office, where he eventually became head prosecutor.

Writing about his late 20s in the years surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, Cunningham describes a seven-year period when he worked in the Camden County prosecutor’s office and eventually rose to lead it. He portrays Camden County as a place “whose only natural resources… are booze and bad decisions.”

The cases he recounts include a brutal domestic violence prosecution, a double murder, and child sex crimes. Together, they offer an unflinching portrait of rural justice, where resources are scarce and law enforcement is uneven. Cunningham also credits himself with renovating the office, modernizing the courthouse, streamlining the DWI system, and solving a cold case.

As Cunningham seeks re-election, he becomes the target of a political campaign that ends his career. He’s opposed by a group he sardonically calls the C.A.V.E. people (Citizens Against Virtually Everything). In his telling, the group resents anyone who refuses to validate its grievances. “I was besieged on social media, through anonymous text messages, glares at the grocery store.”

Cunningham’s storytelling gifts lift this above the typical prosecutor memoir. He writes much as he apparently prosecuted: with momentum, confidence, and a performer’s instinct. Describing his DWI program, he quips, “I can get your blood faster than I can get a pizza.” Equally important is the narrative’s brisk pace. Even when the subject matter is uncomfortable, these qualities create a genuinely pleasurable read.

Sometimes, Cunningham’s assessment of defendants feels overly judgmental and condescending. Defendants are repeatedly defined by their poverty, poor grammar, or lack of education (he describes one man as “Simple as a creek minnow.”) Yet his reflection that child sex cases are “in many ways … even more soul-wrenching than a murder case” reveals his more human, vulnerable side.

Fans of true crime and courtroom drama will enjoy this fast-paced tome, which is consistently engaging and genuinely moving at times.