The Limits of Justice: A Benjamin Justice Mystery - Hardcover

Wilson, John Morgan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385491174 ISBN 13: 9780385491174

Publisher: Doubleday, 2000

Synopsis

Behind the locked gates of a compound in the California desert, Benjamin Justice discovers a series of crimes so chilling, they make the blood run cold.

This fourth book in the award-winning Benjamin Justice mystery series continues John Morgan Wilson's exploration of the dark depravity that is normally hidden from the glaring California sun, and delivers a tale of suspense that is at once shocking and compellingly addictive.

Still trying to come to terms with his HIV+ status, Benjamin Justice is just resurfacing after a six-month-long romance with Cuervo Gold when he is roused from his self-induced torpor by a young woman bearing the offer of work and a handsome monetary reward.

A sleazy star biographer has just written an exposé of Charlotte Preston's late father, Rod, an actor known more for his masculine hunkiness than his thespian abilities, claiming the Hollywood he-man was not all that he seemed. Charlotte wants Justice to write the rebuttal and set the record straight. But before he can even begin, Charlotte is dead, discovered in her bedroom with a needle in her arm by none other than Justice himself.

Curiosity aroused, and with a generous advance already swelling his bank account, the journalist is determined to discover the truth--not only about Rod Preston's life but also about his daughter's death. What Justice finds hidden deep in the desert links an unlikely group of men to a history of twisted perversion and crimes almost too horrible to believe.

About this title

About the Author

John Morgan Wilson, who lives in West Hollywood, California, is a freelance television and print journalist. His previous books in the Benjamin Justice mystery series are Simple Justice, which won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel and was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award; Revision of Justice, which was also nominated for a Lambda Award; and Justice at Risk.

From the Back Cover

Praise for the Benjamin Justice Mystery Series

Justice at Risk

"Startlingly complex and refreshingly sophisticated--tackles real-life issues with just the right combination of urbanity and hard-boiled sleuthing."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Wilson handles the complex, ambitious plot with resonance and maturity even as he hits the obligatory emotional high spots."
--Kirkus Reviews

Revision of Justice

"A tightly paced page-turner--must reading for all serious mystery fans."
--Booklist (starred review)

"A complex mystery with a million characters and enticing dialogue--"
--Los Angeles Times, Westside Weekly

Simple Justice

"This moody first mystery...isn't your typical day at the beach. But with its vivid dissection of Los Angeles lowlife and intriguing characters, you may find it tough to put down."
--People

"Wilson writes with such skill, pluck, and conviction that it becomes both suspenseful and moving. Sexy, too."
--Washington Post

From the Inside Flap

ocked gates of a compound in the California desert, Benjamin Justice discovers a series of crimes so chilling, they make the blood run cold.<br><br>This fourth book in the award-winning Benjamin Justice mystery series continues John Morgan Wilson's exploration of the dark depravity that is normally hidden from the glaring California sun, and delivers a tale of suspense that is at once shocking and compellingly addictive.<br><br>Still trying to come to terms with his HIV+ status, Benjamin Justice is just resurfacing after a six-month-long romance with Cuervo Gold when he is roused from his self-induced torpor by a young woman bearing the offer of work and a handsome monetary reward.<br><br>A sleazy star biographer has just written an exposé of Charlotte Preston's late father, Rod, an actor known more for his masculine hunkiness than his thespian abilities, claiming the Hollywood he-man was not all that he seemed. Charlotte wants Justice to write the rebuttal and set the record st

Reviews

A sensitive and powerful writer, Edgar Award-winner Wilson presents a compelling portrait of gay life in contemporary Los Angeles in his fourth book (after 1999's Justice at Risk) featuring HIV-positive journalist Benjamin Justice. Having destroyed his newspaper career with a faked story that won him a Pulitzer, Justice is sinking into a self-imposed, unwashed funk when Charlotte Preston offers him 50 grand to ghostwrite a sleazy tell-all about biographer Randall Capri, author of a sordid expos? of her late, mucho macho movie star father, Rod. When Charlotte is found dead, Justice is the only person who doesn't think the woman committed suicide. His search for the truth about Rod Preston leads him to a group of famous menAa movie star, a pop singer, a business tycoonAwho prey on preteen boys and do terrible things to them in the desert mansion of a creepy doctor and his mortician sister. Amazingly, within this obvious and often ludicrous premise, Wilson is able to nourish many moments of effective art. He beautifully evokes such heavily trodden Southern California literary landscapes as West Hollywood, Montecito and the road to Tijuana. Then there's a truly frightening moment as JusticeAwho has had his bouts with the bottleAtalks about the dangerous delights of tequila, as well as a thrilling action scene where he's almost drowned by crashing waves outside a fortified Malibu beach house. Best of all is Justice himself, as his quest becomes his own wake-up call to rejoin the human race. Agent, Alice Martell. (July)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A high-paying offer of work nudges former journalist Benjamin Justice out of a lengthy bout with alcohol and depression triggered by a Pulitzer scandal and positive HIV test results. His client, the daughter of a recently deceased movie-idol father, wants him to ghostwrite a sleazy biography of the opportunistic author whose own sleazy book had "exposed" the father as a pedophile. After the woman's subsequent questionable suicide, Justice seeks the real truth about both menDand himself. Solid, well-worked prose, psychological depth, and the haunting California settings recommend this to all collections.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Wilson's latest addition to his award-winning Benjamin Justice mystery series is rivetingly dark and brooding. Former investigative journalist Justice is putting an end to his half-year love affair with the bottle after learning that a brutal rape has infected him with HIV. Then he is roused to action by Charlotte Preston, a young woman offering him work and a lucrative advance. Justice soon finds himself about to dig up dirt on a man who's written a sleazy exposeof Charlotte's late Hollywood-star father, which claims that the handsome Rod Preston had sexually preyed on young boys. But Charlotte quickly turns up dead with a syringe full of poison in her arm. Justice doesn't buy the official verdict of suicide, and so extends his investigation until he uncovers more than just the compulsions of the dead actor, and ends up following an underground labyrinth leading to a network of wealthy pedophiles who exploit poor, homeless, often immigrant boys. Throughout his quest for Charlotte's killer, Justice pushes his sick, weakened body to the limit, making Wilson's latest a page-turner many will find impossible to put down. Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

One

It's never been too difficult bumping into murder in Los Angeles. Not when at least one or two residents get rubbed out every day, and your closest friend is a crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times, and your own background is as darkly stained with violent death as a coroner's report printed with cheap ink.

When you've got all that going for you, felony homicide has a way of finding you in the City of Angels — even in neighboring West Hollywood, the cozy little community shaped on the map like a submachine gun that I call home sweet home. Sometimes, another case of murder walks right up and knocks on your door, the way it happened one gray March morning when Charlotte Preston came seeking my services.

"Benjamin Justice?"

She tapped her delicate knuckles three times against the warped wood that framed the dirty screen, a dim figure peering in, trying to find me in the two-room apartment.

"Mr. Justice, your friend Alexandra suggested I contact you. I've left several messages."

"Yes, I know."

She pressed her face closer, squinting, with the fingers of her left hand held across her forehead like a Girl Scout's salute. It was the face of a thirty-something woman, fair in complexion and pretty in a conventional way. The features included a small, pleasant mouth, nicely upturned nose, faint blush to the softly arched cheeks, earnest amber eyes under big lashes that sought me out a little too desperately for my comfort. Over her curling auburn hair, she wore a knit cap of bright chartreuse that tried awfully hard to look jaunty and hip.

"Might I come in for a moment?"

I sat on the bare floor across the messy room, leaning against the wall, in a veil of shadow undisturbed by the gloomy light outside.

"I'm not dressed for visitors. But, then, I rarely am."

"My name's Charlotte Preston. I—"

"Yes, I know."

"Of course; the phone messages."

"Something about a writing job."

I saw her head turn this way and that, as if someone might be listening.

"I'd prefer to speak to you more privately."

"I haven't showered or shaved."

"That's not a problem, Mr. Justice."

"I haven't brushed my teeth for a while."

"Your friend Alexandra warned me that you might be reluctant to see me."

"I stink, Miss Preston."

"She told me you've been out of work for some time."

"The least of my bad habits."

"She said you've been going through a rough period."

"Will you do me a favor, Miss Preston?"

"If I can."

"Go away."

She hesitated, as if she might actually turn and depart, as if simple decency compelled her to honor my request. But simple decency rarely wins out against a burning desire for vengeance, which happened to be in Charlotte Preston's heart that bleak morning.

Her tone became more businesslike.

"I'm prepared to offer you a substantial amount of money."

"Substantial is a relative term. Also rather vague. Always prefer the concrete to the vague, the specific to the general. Strunk and White, Elements of Style."

Esoteric references to literary manuals failed to dissuade her.

"For your work, which I estimate will require less than a year of your time, I'm prepared to offer fifty thousand dollars in cash. Twenty-five thousand immediately as an advance, if you take the job. Twenty-five thousand upon completion of your work. More money later, if things work out."

My body remained slack, wedged like a sack of rotting potatoes in the recessed angle of the wall and floor, but my mind was sitting up and paying attention.

"There are mansions in Malibu that rent for that much in a month."

"We're not in Malibu, are we, Mr. Justice?"

My disheveled blond head stayed put, resting against the wall, while my puffy eyes conducted a quick survey of the room. It was a decent but sparsely furnished single apartment over a garage that cost me five hundred bucks a month, which was a steal in fashionable West Hollywood, but still more than I could come up with at the moment. More to the point, the rent was due at the end of the week, if I had the weeks right, which I sometimes didn't.

"No, Miss Preston, we're not in Malibu."

"You'll talk to me then?"

"Turn your head. I'm in my underwear. Not a pretty sight."

She stepped back in a pivot, facing the green hills that rose above Sunset Boulevard a few blocks north. I got to my feet, found a pair of wrinkled jeans in a corner, pulled them on. I did a sniff check on one of the armpits of a T-shirt that had once been white, then on a sweatshirt that didn't know if it was blue or gray. The sweatshirt won. I slipped into it, pushed down the unruly hair that crowned my bald spot, shoved my feet into a pair of old running shoes I found beneath the bed, straightened the blankets a little.

When I unlatched the screen door, Charlotte Preston spun anxiously at the sound, her eyes bright with optimism.

"I can't tell you how grateful I am that you've accepted my offer."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, shall we?"

I pushed open the door and she stepped in, giving me a better look at her. Below the conventionally pretty head was a fashionably slim body in a loose-fitting silk blouse and pleated slacks, standing at above-average height on open-toed, two-inch pumps; a sweater that looked like it might be cashmere was draped over her narrow shoulders and knotted in front, another calculated attempt to look casual. I suspected Charlotte Preston was one of those people who try awfully hard to make things work out the way they want them to, and if she had fifty grand to spare for her efforts, I was willing to listen.

There were chairs at a table in the kitchen so we sat there. I pushed aside a clutter of old magazines whose subscriptions I could no longer afford and one or two half-eaten, molding sandwiches that reminded me how far my life had sunk from a place of heady promise and renewal not much more than a year ago. At least I had caffeine in the cupboard, and I offered her some.

"That would be nice."

"It's instant, I'm afraid."

"Fine."

Everything about Charlotte Preston seemed to be nice and fine. I boiled water in a saucepan on the old gas stove while she talked, waiting for the part that wasn't so nice and so fine. There always is one with someone who works too hard trying to arrange and present their feelings as carefully as their clothes.

"Perhaps you've heard of my father, Rod Preston?"

"The movie star?"

"TV, mostly, in recent years."

"I guess I lost track of him. I've lost track of a lot of things lately."

"But you remember his movies?"

"He was what they call big box office way back when. Nice-looking guy — big shoulders, chiseled face. Yeah, I remember him. Mostly from the late show."

"His film career peaked in the fifties and early sixties, before the movies changed so much."

"Before they stopped being so corny and unrealistic, you mean?"

She barely flinched.

"He was more the old-fashioned kind of matinee idol, I guess. He also starred in a television series that ran for eight years in the seventies, then two more that didn't do as well. After that, mostly guest shots, or low-budget movies made in Europe."

"The Love Boat and spaghetti western circuit."

"You could call it that, I suppose."

She brightened suddenly, as if she'd stumbled on a lucky thought.

"When he was making studio pictures, the theater owners voted him the number-one male star three years in a row."

"Definitely a popular guy."

I dumped coffee crystals into two cups and looked for a clean spoon.

"I imagine you're aware of his passing."

"Not really."

"Oh."

I glanced over as I inspected a spoon for anything too crusty.

"I don't read the papers or watch the news much. Not for a while."

"I see."

"To be quite frank, I've never had much interest in the goings-on of Hollywood, although I realize a lot of people in this town think it's the center of the universe."

This time she looked stung, so I applied some salve.

"I'm sorry to hear about your father's death, though. I imagine a lot of folks turned out for the funeral."

"Hundreds and hundreds. He was buried up at Forest Lawn, near the Great Mausoleum. There are lots of film stars up there from the old days. That's where I want to be placed when my time comes, next to Father. I've already made the arrangements."

"You seem a little young to be thinking about funeral plots."

She smiled painfully.

"Father took care of it, actually. Years ago."

"Nice of him, wanting to keep the family together."

"It's just him and me. Mother has other plans."

When I didn't say anything, she hurried ahead.

"He passed in early November. Lung cancer. He was a smoker. I'd always urged him to quit. He did, for a while, after John Wayne died. Then he started up again."

She stumbled over another of those happy thoughts that caused her to perk up like an actress in a toothpaste commercial.

"He made several pictures with John Wayne back in the fifties. They were good friends."

"In the Hollywood sense, or the real sense?"

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"Never mind then."

I added boiling water to...

Edition details

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0385491174
• ISBN 13: 9780385491174
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320