URGE FOR JUSTICE

by John Wainwright ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 3, 1982

In the North England precinct of Chief Supt. Blayde (All on a Summer's Day), a 60-ish recluse named Annie Miller is found horribly murdered--suspended from a peg with piano wire. But there's no apparent motive . . . till (after hint-heavy Nazi Germany flashbacks) Samuel Gold, leader of a Nazi-hunter brigade, confesses to the killing--and it's revealed that the dead woman was really a fugitive Holocaust criminal, living off a hoard of stolen Jewish jewelry. Then, with the narration switching over to Gold's lawyer, the talky focus is on the trial: familiar Nazi-war-crime issues are rehashed simplistically; Chief Supt. Blayde deliberately allows the case against Gold to be lest (a choice of justice over law). But finally, in another flurry of flashbacks, Wainwright offers another one of his dubious double-twists--about the dead woman's true identity and about her attitude (implausible) to her own murder. As usual, then, a contrived Wainwright puzzle, here occasionally weighted down by pretentious philosophizing--but the opening premise is intriguing, the multiple focus keeps things moving, and this (like other recent Wainwrights) is an improvement over his earlier, stream-of-consciousness dreadfuls.

Pub Date: Dec. 3, 1982

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1982

Categories: FICTION