Alan M. Dershowitz will speak about his latest book, Is There a Right to Remain Silent? Coercive Interrogation and the Fifth Amendment After 9/11, at the Chilmark Public Library on Wednesday, July 9, at 5:30 p.m.

Mr. Dershowitz, a Chilmark summer resident, is one of the best-known criminal lawyers in the world and a fierce defender of individual rights. He is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. A graduate of Brooklyn College and Yale Law School, he joined the Harvard Law School faculty at age 25 after clerking for Judge David Bazelon and Justice Arthur Goldberg.

Is There a Right to Remain Silent is a “provocative and erudite ... treatise on the Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, which in his view may become a victim of the war on terror as America slides toward preventing violent acts rather than deterring them with threat of punishment,” according to a Publisher’s Weekly review. Bunch of Grapes Bookstore will have copies of the book available for sale.

Mr. Dershowitz is the author of 20 works of fiction and nonfiction, including six bestsellers. More than a million of his books have been sold worldwide, in numerous languages, and more than a million people have heard him lecture around the world.

His most recent nonfiction titles are Finding Jefferson: A Lost Letter, a Remarkable Discovery, and the First Amendment in an Age of Terrorism; Blasphemy: How The Religious Right Is Hijacking Our Declaration of Independence; The Case For Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can be Resolved; Rights From Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights; The Case for Israel; America Declares Independence; Why Terrorism Works; Shouting Fire; Letters to a Young Lawyer; Supreme Injustice; and The Genesis of Justice. His novels include The Advocate’s Devil and Just Revenge. Mr. Dershowitz is also the author of The Vanishing American Jew, The Abuse Excuse, Reasonable Doubts, Chutzpah (a number one bestseller), Reversal of Fortune (which was made into an Academy Award-winning film), Sexual McCarthyism and The Best Defense.

While he is known for defending clients such as Anatoly Sharansky, Claus von Bülow, O.J. Simpson, Michael Milken and Mike Tyson, he continues to represent numerous indigent defendants and takes half of his cases pro bono.

The lecture is sponsored by the Friends of the Chilmark Public Library. Admission is free. For details, call 508-645-3360.