Robert J Sawyer - Illegal Alien (1997/2012)

Read by Joe Barrett
9:43 unb  64/24 stereo  267 MB

Aliens, Tosoks, have finally made contact with Earth, but there are only seven of them, and they've arrived in a disabled spaceship. The Tosoks are intelligent and surprisingly easy to communicate with, and are happy to tour Earth and see what humans have to offer. But during a stop in Los Angeles, one of the human scientists traveling with the Tosoks is gruesomely murdered, and all evidence points to the alien Hask. The Los Angeles Police Department is determined to indict Hask for the crime, even though the aliens have little concept of laws or crime as we understand them. The only thing the U.S. government can do is secretly procure the services of Dale Rice, a leading civil rights lawyer, and hope he can clear Hask of the charges. But as the trial progresses, evidence indicates a cover-up by one or more of the aliens. Humanity's survival--not just Hask's fate--might hinge on the jury's verdict. 

From Kirkus Reviews
Aliens-on-trial, from the author of Frameshift, etc. When a spaceship containing nonhumanoid aliens splashes down in the Atlantic, the President's science advisor, Frank Nobilio, and astronomer Clete Calhoun are sent to make contact. The Tosok (four eyes, two mouths, one arm in front, another in back) hibernated through the 211-year voyage, but their ship was damaged entering the solar system and they need help with repairs. Then, however, Clete's body is found butchered in the dorm where the aliens are being housed. A Tosok, Hask, is arrested and charged, so Frank hires top civil-rights lawyer Dale Rice to defend him. During the trial it emerges that one of the aliens, Seltar, supposedly killed in the accident that damaged the ship, is still alive; not only that, but she's helping Hask (he did kill Clete, but only by accident) to save humanity from the other Tosok--whose paranoid orders are to wipe out Earth with the particle-beam weapon that Hask and Frank somehow must disable. A consistently plotted if not always persuasively motivated yarn, with ingeniously constructed aliens in a fairly routine courtroom melodrama. 