Jacob Smith, a prominent black lawyer and political and civil rights leader in New York in the segregated 1950s, was assassinated when his son, Jock, was eight years old. If this memoir told only of a child's loving remembrance of his father (and a desire to follow in his footsteps, thus "Climbing Jacob's Ladder"), it would be a success. But Jock Smith grew up to become a lawyer himself, a college professor, one of the first African-American assistant attorneys general in Alabama, and then a highly successful plaintiff's lawyer, sports agent, sports memorabilia collector, and inspirational...