Just Revenge : A Novel [Hardcover]

Alan M. Dershowitz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1999

One of the foremost courtroom lawyers of his generation. Alan M. Dershowitz takes controversial stands based on the principle of equal justice for all. Along the way, he has authored the #1 New York Times bestseller Chutzpah; the bestselling account of the Claus von Bulow case Reversal of Fortune; and the bestselling courtroom drama The Advocate's Devil. Now Dershowitz has written a novel that is at once personal, passionate, and towering: an explosive legal thriller that pits Dershowitz's literary alter ego, attorney Abe Ringel, against the worst crime of the twentieth century -- the Holocaust.

What if you witnessed the most abominable deeds that human beings can inflict upon each other? What if you came face-to-face with the very man who had slaughtered your family before your eyes? That is the question confronted by a celebrated professor named Max Menuchen. Max has found the man who had killed his entire family in cold blood more than a half century before. Max, who has never before broken a law, cannot turn down his chance for revenge.

In 1943 Marcellus Prandus was a Lithuanian militia captain who carried out the blood-thirsty orders of his Nazi commanders during World War II. Today he is an old man living outside Boston. For Max, who has discovered Prandus's identity by chance, killing him is not enough, because Prandus is already dying of cancer. How can Max make Prandus suffer exactly as Max himself did? Can Max bring himself to assassinate Prandus's children and grandchildren and make the old man watch his family die, as Max himself was forced to do?

By the time defense attorney Abe Ringel enters the case, Max has carried out an astounding act of revenge, and America'sgreat Holocaust trial has begun: an explosive legal and moral struggle to find the light of justice within the darkness of human evil. With Max facing almost certain conviction, Ringel desperately tries to prove his actions we

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In his first courtroom drama, The Advocate's Devil, Alan M. Dershowitz introduced us to defense attorney Abe Ringel as he represented a rapist. That book probed a controversial legal issue--what happens when a defender doubts his own client's innocence? In Dershowitz's second legal thriller--Abe (along with the whole judicial system) is confronted with a still bigger dilemma: Is a Holocaust survivor entitled to seek revenge on the perpetrator who butchered his family some 50 years earlier?

Max Menuchen was just 18 years old when Captain Marcelus Prandus of the Lithuanian Auxiliary Militia forced his family (and dozens of other Jewish families) into the Ponary Woods in Vilna, Lithuania, making them dig their own graves. The young man could only watch as Prandus shot his pregnant wife, Leah, and baby boy, Efraium. Escaping a similar fate by "dumb luck," Max survived the bullet, but not the torment and guilt that would haunt him for decades. Then, in 1999, Max makes the chilling discovery that Prandus escaped any punishment and now lives in a small Massachusetts town, surrounded by a loving family.

The world didn't care about what happened in the Ponary Woods. That was what was destroying Max. That was what drove him to the vengeance in which he was now engaged.

Determined to make the former Nazi suffer, Max and an old acquaintance kidnap Prandus, tie him to a chair, and psychologically torture him. Prandus then commits suicide to escape his own "suffering." Max now stands accused of murder--and his old friend Abe Ringel must prove that the revenge was just, for the sake of the Menuchens and for all those who suffered at the hands of the Nazis.

The legal mechanics of Max's trial are hardly exceptional (author Dershowitz has a tendency to slip back into his other role as Harvard law professor, and we sometimes feel more like students than readers). However, the moral implications of such a controversial trial make Just Revenge a compelling, and ultimately thought-provoking, read. --Naomi Gesinger

From Publishers Weekly

Who determines justice? In this thought-provoking and ambitious novel, lawyer and Harvard professor Dershowitz creates a decide-for-yourself scenario that is both chilling and life affirming. Elderly scholar Max Menuchen is a Holocaust survivor who endures haunting memories of the 1942 massacre of his infant son, pregnant wife and extended family in Vilna, Lithuania. His grandfather's last cry for revenge echoes constantly in his mind, even after he emigrates to America and builds a successful career. Finally, after a lifetime of survivor guilt, a chance encounter in Cambridge, Mass., leads him to the Nazi killer of his family, Marcelus Prandus, who lives nearby, surrounded by his children and grandchildren, his past never revealed to his American-born family. To prosecute him for war crimes appears to be futileAPrandus is terminally ill and would die before any trial came to pass. Overcome with frustration and a burning need to avenge his family's deaths, MaxAan otherwise gentle, kindly academicAconceives a plan to punish Prandus that is both shocking and brilliant. Ultimately, a psychologically devastated Prandus takes his own life. Is Max responsible for his death? Were his actions morally acceptable? And of immediate relevance, were they legal? Defense lawyer Abe RingelAreturning from Dershowitz's previous novel The Advocate's DevilAtakes on his old friend Max's case and seeks to prove that retribution and justice are not irreconcilable. Full of clever twists, Dershowitz's latest endeavor is intricately plotted, though the dialogue is on the stiff side and frequently more utilitarian than conversational. Subtlety is not Dershowitz's strong suit, nor is literary finesse, but he makes up for these shortcomings with the dramatic and tragic events that frame the plot, and the intensity of his moral argument. He dedicates the novel to the members of his family who were killed by the Nazis and their collaborators. Agent, Helen Rees. 5-city author tour.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (September 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446519839
• ISBN-13: 978-0446519830
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (68 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #333,219 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ is a Brooklyn native who has been called 'the nation's most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer' and one of its 'most distinguished defenders of individual rights,' 'the best-known criminal lawyer in the world,' 'the top lawyer of last resort,' and 'America's most public Jewish defender.' He is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Dershowitz, a graduate of Brooklyn College and Yale Law School, joined the Harvard Law School faculty at age 25 after clerking for Judge David Bazelon and Justice Arthur Goldberg. While he is known for defending clients such as Anatoly Sharansky, Claus von B'low, O.J. Simpson, Michael Milken and Mike Tyson, he continues to represent numerous indigent defendants and takes half of his cases pro bono. Dershowitz is the author of 20 works of fiction and non-fiction, including 6 bestsellers. His writing has been praised by Truman Capote, Saul Bellow, David Mamet, William Styron, Aharon Appelfeld, A.B. Yehoshua and Elie Wiesel. 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 The Case For Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can be Resolved (August 2005, Wiley); Rights From Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights (November 2004, Basic Books), The Case for Israel (September 2003, Wiley), 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. Dershowitz is also the author of The Vanishing American Jew, The Abuse Excuse, Reasonable Doubts, Chutzpah (a #1 bestseller), Reversal of Fortune (which was made into an Academy Award-winning film), Sexual McCarthyism and The Best Defense.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Very disappointing, August 30, 2004

By 

Tome Toad (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Just Revenge (Mass Market Paperback)

Few things are more disappointing to a reader than a good story in the hands of a mediocre writer. Dershowitz is such a poor fiction writer that he drains the life from what is one of the most consistently compelling sources of fiction - the guilt and rage of survivors of unspeakable horror. His characters are so superficial and wooden that they distract from the ideas and issues he attempts to address. He totally fails to develop any type of psychological complexity in the participants in this drama. He is unable to tell his story through coherent actions and inner thoughts of his characters. As a result, he's forced to violate one of the main tenets of fiction writing - show, don't tell. He has to stop and tell us constantly why this character feels this or that, and he does it like a guy hitting a tack with a sledge hammer. There's no subtle development of each character's story, no gradual enlightenment of the reader as to why the various characters come to feel so deeply about Max, why they hate or support him, why they want to help or thwart him. The effect is jarring and distracting - female characters apparently having reasoned conversations suddenly burst into hysteria and tears - for one line only - then stop and continue their conversations. Max, after 50 years of stalwart sanity and self control, suddenly flops to the floor in a shrieking flashback, only to jump up and be his intellectual and controlled self again. The victim's son ... well, he makes no sense at all. The ending is so contrived and forced that it takes the punch out of the whole story - as if the author couldn't figure out a sensible way to arrive at the ending he wanted. He's forced, therefore, to have the victim's son do something so out of character that it leaves the reader feeling incredulous.

But there is one good thing to say about this story - Max's revenge is one of the most diabolically clever plans I've come across. It's damn near brilliant. Too bad it gets overwhelmed by bad prose writing.

Is the book worth reading? Well I finished it. It's a fast read, the story of the massacre of Max's family is compelling and his revenge is very satisfying. But it's not worth buying - check it out of the library.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Unrealistic with great liberties on how legal system works, October 6, 1999

By 

Toledo Flash "Jim" (toledo, ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Just Revenge : A Novel (Hardcover)

Writing style is basic at best. Developoment of characters is flawed and uninteresting. The author uses great liberties in describing how our legal system is applied in a jury situation and some of it is actually inaccurate. Book does not create much suspense and many of the plots are given away by his use of present tense rather than past tense when describing the alleged murders of the Prandus family. The ending leaves you hanging and does not really address the issue of revenge murder. The book was a waste of money and the author should stick to teaching what he thinks the law is at Harvard.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Breathtaking and almost unimaginable vulgarity, August 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Just Revenge : A Novel (Hardcover)

Having written The Vanishing American Jew: In Search for Jewish Identity for the Next Century and that classic of self-celebration, Chutzpah, Mr. Dershowitz is himself something of a soi-disant expert on Jewish culture. Here he gives us a courtroom melodrama in which Abe Ringel-the hero of a previous Dershowitz thriller and, one can't help thinking, a stand-in for the author-gets the chance to try his dream case. His friend Max Menuchen, an aged, dignified, sympathetic Holocaust survivor, has learned that the Lithuanian officer who ordered the massacre of his family is alive in America. The old man concocts an elaborate revenge scheme, and when Max is accused of engineering the Lithuanian's death, Abe agrees to defend him.

It's difficult, really, to fully describe just how dreadful the novel is. Unable to distinguish between dialogue and exposition, Mr. Dershowitz treats us to passages like the following, in which Max relates a childhood memory: "`We must have looked strange,' Max said with a warm smile as he remembered the scene. `A portly old man with a flowing white beard and a fur hat, crawling around a dark attic, while his 18-year-old grandson, wearing a black suit and a yarmulke, with curly sidelocks and the beginning of a never-shaved beard, held a flickering candle.'" With no apparent interest in narrative verisimilitude or psychological credibility, he muddles up dramatic moments like this one: "`I could never forget your eyes!' Max bellowed as his hand, with a will of its own, smashed against Prandus' face.... Prandus cringed in fear, not from the force of the blow, but from Max's words. As he watched the powerful man's face twitch, Max heard King Lear's terrible words: `Tremble, thou wretch, that hast within thee undivulged crimes unwhipped of justice ...'"

But the novel's literary flaws are the least of it. What's galling is the righteousness with which Mr. Dershowitz advances his shaky moral agenda, with its explicit and disturbing endorsement of vigilante justice. ("My hope is that I have written a book that may lead a few people to better understand and empathize with the victims of the worst crime ever perpetrated by one group of human beings on another." The uses to which he puts the Holocaust are appalling; the mass murder that Max recalls seems not just generic but, detail for detail, suspiciously reminiscent of a similar scene in Night, by Elie Wiesel.

In Just Revenge, American-Jewish culture has been brought to new and previously unplumbed depths by Mr. Dershowitz's egregious attempt to reduce the Holocaust to a bad lawyer joke.