***
Fictionalized account of a real case tried by the author in 1952, concerning the defense of an Army lieutenant accused of murdering the man who raped his wife. Intelligent and reasonably entertaining legal thriller, though with heavy emphasis on the legal side of things and very few thrills. The book's greatest weakness, in fact, is its almost complete lack of suspense: if Traver didn't keep telling us how clever and able the prosecutor is and how fragile the case for the defense, we'd frankly never guess it ourselves. On the other hand, if Traver steers well clear of the sort of passion and messy emotions that make for good drama, he at least writes what he knows, which is the ins and outs of an imperfect legal system. The book, for instance, depends a great deal on the rape, about which there's simply no question. This has to be the case, for the book begins with our hero all but putting up a billboard outside his perfecctly rational client's jail cell spelling out for him the only possible legal defense, that being an insanity plea. Truth, we infer, may take a back seat when justice is at stake. Later, we learn the fascinating truth of the value of "expert" psychiatric testimony: it gives the jury wiggle room in their quest for a verdict. Not as good as 62 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list would have you believe, but enjoyable nevertheless. (With, however, an interesting attitude toward rape itself. Though we are given the awful details, the violated wife bounces back from the experience quite nicely and is soon even joking about her bruises. When the lawyer hero eventually succeeds in getting the rape into the trial, his reaction is the heartwarming thought, "at last I got the lady laid!") Robert Traver is the pen name of John D. Voelker. Made into a film directed by Otto Preminger in 1959.
Fictionalized account of a real case tried by the author in 1952, concerning the defense of an Army lieutenant accused of murdering the man who raped his wife. Intelligent and reasonably entertaining legal thriller, though with heavy emphasis on the legal side of things and very few thrills. The book's greatest weakness, in fact, is its almost complete lack of suspense: if Traver didn't keep telling us how clever and able the prosecutor is and how fragile the case for the defense, we'd frankly never guess it ourselves. On the other hand, if Traver steers well clear of the sort of passion and messy emotions that make for good drama, he at least writes what he knows, which is the ins and outs of an imperfect legal system. The book, for instance, depends a great deal on the rape, about which there's simply no question. This has to be the case, for the book begins with our hero all but putting up a billboard outside his perfecctly rational client's jail cell spelling out for him the only possible legal defense, that being an insanity plea. Truth, we infer, may take a back seat when justice is at stake. Later, we learn the fascinating truth of the value of "expert" psychiatric testimony: it gives the jury wiggle room in their quest for a verdict. Not as good as 62 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list would have you believe, but enjoyable nevertheless. (With, however, an interesting attitude toward rape itself. Though we are given the awful details, the violated wife bounces back from the experience quite nicely and is soon even joking about her bruises. When the lawyer hero eventually succeeds in getting the rape into the trial, his reaction is the heartwarming thought, "at last I got the lady laid!") Robert Traver is the pen name of John D. Voelker. Made into a film directed by Otto Preminger in 1959.
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