Clearing his name of the false charges of vandalism and theft that were leveled against him, thirteen-year-old legal maverick Theodore Boone hopes to return to his life of giving advice to friends and community members when an exciting new case demands his urgent attention.

When his best friend disappears from her bedroom in the middle of the night, thirteen-year-old Theo uses his legal knowledge and investigative skills to chase down the truth and save April.

When an anonymous tip leads the school board to investigate a suspicious increase in scores at another local middle school, Theo finds himself thrust in the middle of a cheating scandal. With insider knowledge and his future on the line, Theo must follow his keen instincts to do whats right.

Theodore Boone, young lawyer, has had a lot to deal with in his 13 years; everything from kidnapping to murder. But he's come through it all and, with the law on his side, justice has always prevailed. But sometimes the law doesn't seem so just. His friend Hardie Quinn is about to have his family home bulldozed to make way for a bypass. Hardie is not the only one affected: other homes, businesses and schools lie in the path of the road. Theo has to...

The reader is encouraged to make his own decisions for each of the Forty courtroom mysteries described before reading the verdict printed upside down on the following page.

"Among all of Carr's ingenious crime scenes, the present case is one of his best known: a dead man is found strangled in the middle of a clay tennis court, just after a storm. In the damp dirt, there is one set of footsteps -- his own -- leading back to the grass; the court is otherwise untouched. There are no trees above from which the body may have fallen and no other visible means by which it may have been transported to its final resting place....