The Blackbird Papers

World-renowned Dartmouth professor Wilson Bledsoe is returning from a party in his honor when he encounters a broken-down pickup on the secluded country road. The next day his body is discovered with a vicious racial epithet carved into his chest, and two loathsome white supremacists are arrested. The local authorities seem ready to accept the case at face value as a hate crime. But the victim's brother, FBI agent Sterling Bledsoe, isn't ready to buy into this pat solution.