8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Engrossing Tale & Character, January 23, 2000
This review is from: Simple Justice (Paperback)
Given the plethora of mystery novels on the market today, if a writer is going to launch a series of mystery novels, especially using Los Angeles as the central locale, in order to achieve success, the writer is going to have to take extraordinary efforts to make their work unique. John Morgan Wilson accomplishes this in his first, Edgar winning novel, Simple Justice (1996). What distinguishes Simple Justice from the multitude of other mystery titles available is the complex, yet very real character of Wilson's protagonist, Benjamin Justice.
By the time of the events in Simple Justice, Benjamin Justice, at age thirty-eight, has already known incredible highs and lows in his life, both professionally and personally. A man haunted by his past, Justice also knows the pangs of loss-- his lover of ten years having died of AIDS. And there are deeper scars that weigh this man's soul-- scars reaching back to when he was a teen, living in a home with a physically abusive father and one terrible night in particular that would forever change the landscape of Justice's family and his life.
With the ironically named Benjamin Justice, Wilson has created a character that, because of his personal history, should know more about justice-- or the lack of it-- than most and a character that is motivated by the highest code of right and wrong. Therefore, when he is given a second chance by his former editor to work in journalism again, Justice is extremely reluctant to
open old wounds, but when he does, he does so with a keen sense that nothing is more critical than the truth and that he owes it to himself and those few who have stuck by him to always find that truth.
Narrated by Benjamin Justice, Simple Justice has elements of a modern noir detective novel to it with plenty of edge to the story without becoming a parody of classic hard-boiled detective fiction ala Chandler and Hammett. Justice finds himself dealing with a cast of unique characters,
all of whom have traits which cast suspicion upon them. Though the murder plot to be found in Simple Justice is well done, the turmoil in Benjamin Justice's own life is as real and captivating to the reader as who done it.
Although the way it is presented telegraphs the identity of the true murderer in advance, the final confrontation between Justice and Billy's killer is gripping and worthy of the best of Perry Mason. All in all, Simple Justice is an impressive, satisfying mystery with an exceptionally well-drawn and sympathetic protagonist, that belies the fact that it is a first novel.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A nice potboiler with an alternative lifstyle, June 18, 1998
This review is from: Simple Justice (Paperback)
Like another of your reviewers, I am a heterosexual male who at first was turned off by the graphic male on male fantasies and the more graphic sex. But unlike your other reviewer, it didn't make me homophobic. Instead it was simply an interesting angle in a decent whodunit in which the who was a little too evident.
On second thought, why not male on male fantasies. Most books of this genre have male on female or (more recently) female on male. It's what makes this book a little different.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Simply Good!, January 2, 2004
It must be something about the California climate, but that state keeps producing one good mystery writer after another: Joseph Hansen, Walter Mosley, Michael Nava and now John Morgan Wilson. His first novel SIMPLE JUSTICE is told from the viewpoint of Benjamin Justice, a former journalist who had to give back a Pulitzer-- hey, this character is right up to date-- for writing about what appears to be two fictional characters, one of whom is dying of AIDS. He is coerced into coming out of his alcoholic retirement by his former boss Harry Brofsky to work on a story about a murder outside a gay bar in Los Angeles. Besides these two, Wilson creates other memorable characters. Justice's landlords, Maurice and Fred, could have become stereotypes, but they don't. Alex Templeton, a black heterosexual reporter, makes for an interesting character as does the closeted tennis chamption Samantha Eliason. Wonder whom she's based on.
Wilson avoids doing what many mystery writers do, i.e., he doesn't make the story a treatise on some profession-- journalism, college professors, police departments, for example. Also, the narrative is fast-paced and you do not see the scaffolding underpinning the story line. Most importantly, the characters, particularly Justice, are fully developed as people. Justice actually becomes more self-aware and actually grows as a character, something I don't expect from a mystery character. Finally, Wilson makes a political statement but does it with finesse and subtlety.
There are nice touches. Wilson pays tribute to Walter Mosley by having Samantha Eliason's beefy bodyguard reading Mosley's mystery BLACK BETTY, for instance.
The novel is ultimately quite moving as Wilson takes on difficulty subjects: relationships, homophobia, single gay parents, dysfunctional families, love, forgiveness. SIMPLE JUSTICE is simply a very good mystery.
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