Customer Reviews

The Limits of Justice: A Benjamin Justice Mystery (Benjamin Justice Mysteries)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've been fortunate to have read the Benjamin Justice mysteries in sequence. When this popped into a search list I did on the author, I reserved a copy immediately.

The style itself is an equal match to the other three in the series. Wilson has maintained a steady, even narrative throughout the series.

What I found the most enjoyable was Benjamin's attempt to redeem himself and his condition. He was well on his way to rebuilding his life in 'Justice at Risk', but met with some setbacks. Having hit bottom, again, he must decide to go with the flow or to fight the current.

One minor annoyance: The way the mystery was wrapped up suddenly. It made the whole investigation seem a side-issue.

But even with that point made, I have to heartily suggest this book to anyone who has enjoyed the 'Justice' series. It is a must-read.

If it wasn't for Amazon's Quick Picks, I would never have discovered this author and this great mystery story. After checking the book out on my Amazon Quick Pick List I couldn't wait to read it. I am glad I did because I read this book in one day, it was that interesting and so hard to put down. I will be sure and read his previous three mysteries.

"The Limits Of Justice" tells the story of Charlotte, daughter of TV and movie star Rod Preston, who wants an unauthorized biography stopped about her father.. Private Investigator Benjamin Justice gets on the case, and then Charlotte is found dead. The story goes on to reveal a network of pedophiles and secrets that are too horrible to imagine. This is a very engaging read and keeps you glued to your seat till the very end. His description of the Southern California region and its history, as well as Mexico, is surely educational and enlightening if you are not too familiar with this area. A book worth exploring!

Wilson continues his award-winning style and pacing, as well as the intense rendering of Ben Justice's climb from his pit of self-destruction. The mystery plot begins strong, yet it plummets to a disappointing cliché ending. Justice is hired to write a book refuting claims that a dead Hollywood star was a pederast. He finds the star's daughter dead and seeks her killer. Along the way he stumbles into a boy trade reaching into the highest levels of Los Angeles's social structure. The problem I had with the plot was the actual culprits and their reasons for doing bad things. It was just such a let-down from what I was expecting from Wilson's level of excellence. I am happy with the characterization of Justice, most especially his achievements on the road to recovery. I hope the next in the series overcomes this stumble.

In "The Limits of Justice" John Morgan Wilson returns with Benjamin Justice, a tough, sexy, mid 40's, gay man who was once a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. When the piece he had written was said to be fabricated he was stripped of the honor, and much of his pride and dignity. Now after a six month drinking binge, and a recent diagnosis of HIV, he finds himself in the potentially lucrative position of working for a woman named Charlotte Preston. Her father Rod was a handsome matinee idol back in the forties, and now a scathing posthumous tell all has just been released claiming there were plenty of skeletons in his closet. Charlotte wants Benjamin to investigate the writer. To concoct a counter tell all book about this man she feels has slandered her father's name. No sooner has she signed a check to Justice for commencement of services, he finds her dead. Suddenly his investigation into the death of Charlotte and the life of her father begin to reveal a trail of carefully guarded secrets that are only too horrible to imagine. John Morgan Wilson manages to really hit his stride with this novel. The previous three were almost relentlessly dark in their portrayal of the seedier underbelly of Los Angeles. Here, although Justice is faced with some heavy odds in his own life, he attempts to face the demons both internal and external with renewed vigor and strength.It's also been interesting to watch how the characters adapt and change in their relationships with one another, specifically between Justice and his reporter friend Alexandra Templeton On a side note, one of the really nice things about reading the four Justice books is I've learned more about Southern California's topography and the region's history by his in depth and enlightening descriptions of the surrounding areas.

His Pulitzer Prize winning career ended when his award-winning story proved phony. His health has turned shaky when he learned that he turned HIV-positive. Now as he sinks deeper into the morass of non-living, all Benjamin Justice wants is to be left alone. However, ignoring her calls, not washing, shaving, brushing his teeth, and insulting her fails to deter Charlotte Preston. She wants Benjamin to write a book counter-arguing sleazy celeb-biographer Randall Capri's degrading look at Charlotte's recently deceased father, TV and movie star Rod Preston.

Unable to refuse the $25K advance and $25K follow-up, Benjamin accepts the job. He explains to Charlotte for that amount of money she owns full editorial license to change his words to include whatever the hell that she wants to write. However, before Benjamin can begin his inquiries into the lives of Rod and Randall, someone kills Charlotte. Feeling obligated to continue with the assignment, Benjamin expands his investigation to include discovering Charlotte's murderer.

THE LIMITS OF JUSTICE is a well-designed Hollywood mystery, but it is also a redemption novel. The story line belongs to Benjamin who in his fourth "Justice" tale uses Charlotte's murder as a rallying cause to regain his own lost humanity. Though one of the major underlying themes is out of an X-rated B horror movie, Edgar winner John Morgan Wilson paints a fresh landscape of Southern California. Anyone who enjoys a private investigation story starring an individual on a personal vendetta to regain his former champion status will find this wondrous novel does that and much more.

Harriet Klausner

I actually put off reading this latest visit to the "dark and depraved" world of Benjamin Justice for six months because, frankly, he's a very depressing drunk. So far, I have faithfully followed him through SIMPLE JUSTICE and REVISION OF JUSTICE waiting for an end to his ten-year self-imposed banishment from life to mourn the AIDS death of lover Jacques while attempting to atone for the mistake he made that ruined his career. Finally, I figured things were looking up for Ben in JUSTICE AT RISK. But fate and author John Morgan Wilson had more dastardly things in store for him by the end of that adventure...a forced HIV infection and the paralyzing stoke that put his mentor Harry Brofsky into a nursing home. That brings us to THE LIMITS OF JUSTICE, which I finally picked up and couldn't put down!

The book opens with the death of Harry Brofsky, the end of Justice's six-month affair with Cuervo Gold, his continued physical deterioration from HIV and a knock on his door. The person doing the knocking is Charlotte Preston, daughter of the late Hollywood action hunk Rod Preston. Someone has written a sleazy exposé biography of her father, and she wants retaliate by hiring Justice to ghostwrite a smear of the biographer. Justice banks his advance on the project, but before he can begin work on it he discovers Preston's dead body. The coroner says suicide, but Justice knows it was murder! Naturally, his journalistic tendencies force him to continue his investigation...an investigation that will take him from the homes of the Hollywood rich and famous to the squalor of hustler bars in Tijuana.

Disproving my initial reservations, the book was actually a very interesting read. However, I must be becoming jaded and depraved in my old age, I surmised all the shocking surprises and "the twisted perversions and crimes almost too horrible to believe" long before author Wilson even got around to describing them. (Okay, so I thought the dismemberment murder was part of the cover-up.) Anyway, things are looking up for Justice again, and I can't wait for fate to step back in and slap him around for the next installment. I enjoyed the book and you should, too!

I have read all of the books in this series, and have enjoyed them all. The plot is exciting and gripping, it keeps you guessing. I would recommend this book as well as all the one's in this series.

In "The Limits of Justice," John Morgan Wilson takes his tragic protagonist, Benjamin Justice, through another murder investigation that parallels the former journalist's ongoing struggles with a failed career, lost love and a newly diagnosed HIV infection. Author Wilson is a wonderful story teller and gifted plot spinner, but the living hell that he creates for his principal character and the substance of the crimes at the core of this novel, were heavier than in the other "Justice" books that I've tried--and may be beyond the pale for many readers. At the same time, redemption or the promise of redemption does figure in this story and ultimately rescues it from its otherwise unrelenting brutality and hopelessness.

As other reviewers have mentioned, "The Limits..." is about the exploitation of children, and specifically poor immigrant children, by men with money and power. The perpetrators are portrayed in the darkest and most extreme terms which gives real power and credibility to Benjamin Justice's outrage and motivation to foil them.

Author Wilson is at his best when he writes about his protagonist's inner demons and his ambivalence about the future. A reminder that a past can be so horrific that hope for the future has little chance to grow. Wilson's descriptions of Los Angeles, Southern California and Tijuana are knowing and highly credible, and frame the story well. The supporting cast of characters in the "Justice" series is also well rendered and also gives heart and balance to the otherwise bleak episodes that Benjamin Justice endures.

"The Limits of Justice" is well-written, but first time readers of the series might enjoy other titles better.

I don't know why it is that some authors are able to contrive good plots, but can't write worth a damn, or vice versa. This book is more or less in the first category. This is a page-turning type of mystery, that gets more repulsive (story, that is) as it progresses towards its climactic, repugnant, and bizarre ending. As mystery plots go, this is one of the best.

But Wilson's authorial qualities are a bit on the formulaic side; everytime the set changes, we get a modicum of a description almost as afterthoughts to let us know what the environment or the person looks like. They are at most perfunctory, sometimes unnecessary, and always formulaic interpolations that bog the novel down. If Wilson had a figurative flair, this might not be so bothersome, but Wilson's description of people, places, and things are almost always an afterthought interposed to make the person, place, or thing more than two-dimensional; but they're never really helpful. The story is pretty much linear, and the characters are individuals we could care less if we ever were to meet.

Despite the oftentimes platitidunious writing, this novel is one of the best contrived mysteries I've read, and certainly one of the most bizarre. Even if the characters are nothing more than hastily-described placecards and too abstruse to really care about after 200 pages, the interesting plot keeps the reader thoroughly engaged. So the deficiencies in writing and character development are more than ofset by the controverted (and controversial), economical, yet wholly credible plot.

Despite these serious flaws, recommended.

A few months ago my sister gave me a "Justice" book as a gift. Ever since then I have been of fan of Justice and his creator, John Morgan Wilson. They make my time on the treadmill and bikes at the gym pass very quickly!

The story lines are always creative and twisted a bit and keep me on my feet trying to figure out the angles involved. I have a problem when I read mysteries...I can often figure them out and that bothers me cause I like to be challanged! Wilson and Justice completely challange me...and I will keep reading them as long as there are new editions to grab up.

One of the things I really like are how the characters are complicated...often some of the persons involved are just regular folks who got caught up in a situation and made a bad choice that went very bad. Also being a Los Angeles native and resident I like how the stories are set in places I have been to or see in my everyday travels.

The story lines are usually very hard to stomach sometimes and makes he happy they are pure fiction (god I hope there is little to no truth in them). I sometimes wish that they would be created into movies, but then again there would have to be too many changes to make them marketable and might further advance negative stereotypes of gay men. I have seen the horrible results of another of my favorite mystery characters brought to the screen and don't really want to see that happen again (Fletch series by Greggory McDonald)

One of these days I hope to catch a signing and get all of my copies signed by Wilson.