When a judge leading a double life is murdered, Henry Rios comes to the controversial defense of the prime suspect

Chris Chandler, a long-married and closeted California state superior court judge, has been found dead in his chambers—beaten to death with his recent Judge of the Year award. When his young lover, Zack Bowen, is arrested, Henry Rios takes on Bowen's defense. For Rios, who has kept Judge Chandler's secret since law school, it means going up against a closed community—including Chandler's angry wife and son—to defend a man he believes innocent. Then Bowen vanishes.
As Rios copes with the loss of a friend, and the impending death of his lover, Josh, he finds himself front and center in a case that becomes a test of his own moral courage.

The Death of Friends is the fifth book in the Henry Rios mystery series, which begins with The Little Death and Goldenboy.