THE HUNTER DEEP IN SUMMER

John Bridges, in his middle years, takes a look at his life and finds it lacklustre. His years as a trial lawyer in Los Angeles have brought him material success but no enduring satisfaction; his once passionate, if equable, marriage to Christine is childless. In the small town of Albo, he hopes to find some incentive for his rather shapeless existence, and fulfill a broader social obligation, by taking on an unpopular case- the defense of two Indian boys with a record of drinking and stealing, now charged with murder. Still- it is not enough; nor is the casual affair with the discontented wife of the prosecuting attorney; and as he goes on alone to look for the answers in black and white- he finds only the gray monotone of compromise, in himself as elsewhere..... A quizzical and reasonably thoughtful reconnaissance of the dustier reaches of a man's life-which, like Bridges', is not altogether satisfying or for that matter ingratiating. Still, it is honest, and while it prods it does not placate.