The Unmourned Docket

When seventeen-year-old Leo Marsh stumbles into a dark web livestream of a whistleblower's execution, he becomes the target of "The Docket," a clandestine network of arbitrators-for-hire who permanently silence corporate plaintiffs. Set against the backdrop of a landmark federal arbitration ruling, the story traces Leo's descent through a legal system that protects the powerful, where mandatory arbitration clauses become death warrants. Aided by a disgraced law professor and a shadow network of forgotten victims' families, Leo must expose the truth hidden in the digital tombs of the disappeared. Blending Yan Lianke's surrealist critique of institutional absurdity with a taut transcontinental thriller, this tale reveals the gray expanse between justice and law, where countless unmourned ghosts dwell, their only crime the desire to be heard.