Blind Eye: A Benjamin Justice Novel (Benjamin Justice Mysteries) [Paperback]

John Morgan Wilson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 14, 2004 | Series: Benjamin Justice Mysteries

Benjamin Justice, a disgraced journalist in his mid-forties, is slowly putting his life back together. Under contract to write his tumultuous life story, Justice is trying to put all the elements of his life into perspective for the first time. When trying to locate his childhood priest, however, he runs into a bureaucratic stone wall. Then his best friend's fiance, a Lost Angeles Times columnist, is killed in a tragic and suspicious hit-and-run accident shortly after trying to aid Justice in his search. Reluctant at first, Justice soon finds himself in the midst of a complex case involving a decades-old child murder, a powerful and controversial cardinal, and elements of his own dark past.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Edgar-winner Wilson (Simple Justice) was certainly ahead of the news curve when he invented a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter disgraced and fired for inventing sources. Now, in his fifth book about Benjamin Justice, Wilson again mines recent headlines, sending his wounded hero on a quest for the Catholic priest who molested him when he was 12 years old. It's a viable idea, and the HIV-positive Justice has some interesting edges, but the author seems determined to test him-and his readers-with so much high-impact paranoia that the story quickly goes over the top. The trouble starts when Joe Soto, the ace Los Angeles Times columnist engaged to Justice's friend Alexandra Templeton, shows Justice an outline for a book he plans to write about an infamous assassin who works for various drug cartels. Then Joe obligingly writes a story about Justice's missing priest and is promptly murdered by a hit-and-run driver outside a restaurant. Was it the assassin? Or could it have been a suspicious-looking police detective who lusts after Alexandra? How about a hit man hired by the increasingly edgy Los Angeles archbishop and his chief aide, who offer Justice a million dollars to drop his investigation into the pedophile priest? Long before the frantic ending in a new cathedral being built at vast expense in downtown L.A., most readers will have concluded that the point of wretched excess has already been achieved.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

At a time when so many mystery and suspense novels rely not on a compelling major character who embodies a moral center in a world gone awry, but instead on the glitter and glitz of exotic locales and high-tech chases, Wilson's latest, outstanding Benjamin Justice mystery, thanks to its dark, groping, fatally flawed, but redeemable hero, comes like food to starving genre buffs. A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who later had to surrender the award because he had invented sources, Justice floundered for years after--years of decline and drinking, punctuated by a few, successful, free-lance gigs combining journalistic research and private investigation. Now, he is HIV-positive but regrouping and writing his autobiography. Flashbacks from his own childhood molestation by a priest dovetail with the murder of a journalist who was investigating the Catholic Church's cover-up of an L.A. priest's sordid activities. When Justice, a prete manque in so many ways, looks into the crime, he advances to new levels of risk and confrontation, both within himself and without. At its best, Wilson's work recalls the best of Graham Greene's mysteries. He writes meditations on repentance and forgiveness as well as whodunits, giving discerning readers reason to rejoice. His contemplation of the anguished soul and its redemption makes him Greene's heir apparent and the savior of the mystery as morality play. Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books (October 14, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031230921X
• ISBN-13: 978-0312309213
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,466,690 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Long awaited sequel is best of the bunch!, October 3, 2003

By 

Bob Lind "camelwest" (Phoenix, AZ United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Blind Eye: A Benjamin Justice Novel (Hardcover)

Now in his mid-40's, HIV+ and single since his boyfriend moved out of the country, the Benjamin Justice we find here seems
significantly subdued from the fiery, brash investigative journalist we met in Wilson's first four books in the series, which started a dozen years earlier. Back then, Justice had managed to short-circuit a promising journalism career by fabricating some interviews for a story which won a Pulitzer Prize, and was caught. Writing assignments had been few and far between since then. In the past five years, Benjamin had not worked, living simply and frugally, but recently got an advance to write his biography, which gives him some apprehensions about reliving part of his past he'd rather not revisit. His only current link to his former profession is his best friend Alexandra Templeton, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, who is secretly engaged to columnist Joe Soto, a longtime friend as well.

In making notes on his biography, Justice faces his long-buried
feelings about having been molested at ages 12-13 by a parish priest back in Buffalo NY. To bring closure to that episode in his life, he seeks out information about the priest, and learns that he actually had been transferred to the Los Angeles archdiocese a few years after his encounters, and died in a reported hiking accident about ten years ago. Justice presses the local diocese officials for more information, whether there had been further reports of molestations or if he had indeed been "rehabilitated," and is surprised when the "sorry, that's confidential" response comes from the office of the Bishop himself. Justice smells a coverup, and talks his friend Joe Soto into doing a column about an "anonymous" reader who reported abuse by the priest, and the strange reaction
received from the diocese.

The mystery quickly grows from there, as Joe Soto is killed in a suspicious hit-and-run accident, with some evidence suggesting that the driver may have been an infamous South American hired assassin, who usually works for drug cartels. At the same time, reaction to Soto's column triggers letters from readers with additional reports of mollestations by the priest, creating more questions than answers, especially when one such reader mysteriously dies in a fall from the hospital where she worked. When the diocese offers him a million dollars to end his investigations, Justice becomes more
assured that the bishop (which had been a close friend of the priest in question) may be involved, and perhaps even the presiding Cardinal, who is under strong consideration to be the next pope.

Absolute nail-biting suspense, with passages of outright terror, make this, in my opinion, the best of the series. Realistic, street-saavy characters and scenarios, with an eye for detail that makes him one of the best.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I love this series., August 2, 2004

By 

V. A McCoy "Have book. Will travel." (Nashville, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blind Eye: A Benjamin Justice Novel (Hardcover)

I was absolutely thrilled when I found out that John Morgan Wilson had written a fifth Benjamin Justice novel, because I was heartbroken when the series ended (or so I thought). I wasn't sure how Wilson could top The Limits of Justice, but he did, managing to take on vaunting ambition, the Catholic Church, institutionalized pedophilia, corrupt media, and spiritual alienation, all in one fell swoop.

Ben is, as ever, a fantastic character...a man of both nobility and carnal appetite, of deeply felt compassion and reckless bravado. He's a lost soul, struggling not to succumb to fear and darkness and despair. I adore him and his struggle, which always, inevitably, costs him something in the end. This story is no different. I actually gasped out loud at one point in the book, stricken to my very heart by the price Ben pays for contending with evil.

I would highly, highly recommend this book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Really over the top, March 29, 2005

By 

Kaye Barlow (Vancouver Island, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blind Eye: A Benjamin Justice Novel (Benjamin Justice Mysteries) (Paperback)

This latest book by John Morgan Wilson manages to be extremely timely, relevant and although, written with his usual skill, quite unbelievable. Wilson's protagonist, Benjamin Justice, is in the process of writing his memoirs and while delving into his past and searching for information about the priest who sexually abused him as a child, he starts upon a series of catastrophes and mayhem.

First, his best friend's fiancé is assassinated; though in the beginning his death is considered an accident. There is a hired assassin and skullduggery and corruption in the highest echelons of the Catholic Church. The story proceeds pell-mell to a quite unbelievable conclusion.

As always, Wilson imbues Justice with depth and humanity and compassion and his friends and neighbors are delightful and entertaining. But unfortunately, this foray by Justice is just a little too much over the top. Hopefully, his next adventure will return to some semblance of reality