Blind Eye: A Benjamin Justice Novel

So if I stayed up until 3:00 a.m. to finish this, does that mean it's a good book? Yes, it certainly is. This is a Benjamin Justice novel, and Ben is going through his usual angst. He's broken up with his last partner, and is coping with his HIV meds, while trying to write his autobiography. He decides that he needs to track down the whereabouts of the priest who molested him when he was twelve years old. Though he discovers the man has since died, he also discovers that there were more victims. Then a reporter who is helping his investigate, and who writes a column about priest molestations, is murdered, and it looks like the Archdiocese, which tries to bribe Justice into silence about the priest, itself may be involved. With Wilson, there is no black-and-white, only shades of grey. Even a vicious killer's back story hints at some reasons for sympathy. Justice struggles with his history, feeling guilt for things he did (and didn't do) as a child that are affecting the present. In what will surely offend some people, pure evil here is confined to the hierarchy of the Catholic church. It is not only the molestations and the cover-ups, which could be taken from any headline, but the total lack of empathy and caring, the hypocrisy, that makes these men evil. This is one of the darkest of a dark series. And well worth reading.

I was absolutely thrilled when I found out that John Morgan Wilson had written a fifth Benjamin Justice novel, because I was heartbroken when the series ended (or so I thought). I wasn't sure how Wilson could top The Limits of Justice, but he did, managing to take on vaunting ambition, the Catholic Church, institutionalized pedophilia, corrupt media, and spiritual alienation, all in one fell swoop. Ben is, as ever, a fantastic character...a man of both nobility and carnal appetite, of deeply felt compassion and reckless bravado. He's a lost soul, struggling not to succumb to fear and darkness and despair. I adore him and his struggle, which always, inevitably, costs him something in the end. This story is no different. I actually gasped out loud at one point in the book, stricken to my very heart by the price Ben pays for contending with evil. I would highly, highly recommend this book.

Wilson's latest book is not for the weak stomached, nor for those who would "blindly" follow the Church's orders. There is a lot of hard boiled grit here. Much of it is about the gay society in West Los Angeles. To my surprise, I didn't find it much different from the other areas of LA. Wilson's writing is fast paced and shocking. He gives the church its due, and it's about time! This is a book to keep you reading right to the end. And don't forget to think about the multi-meaning of the title!

The saga of Benjamin Justice continues and excels. This latest volume brings richer qualities to the characters and raises genuine issues for analysis and discussion. The writing is touching, moving, and suspenseful. A must-buy for any fan of mystery writing - gay or straight.

Now in his mid-40's, HIV+ and single since his boyfriend moved out of the country, the Benjamin Justice we find here seems significantly subdued from the fiery, brash investigative journalist we met in Wilson's first four books in the series, which started a dozen years earlier. Back then, Justice had managed to short-circuit a promising journalism career by fabricating some interviews for a story which won a Pulitzer Prize, and was caught. Writing assignments had been few and far between since then. In the past five years, Benjamin had not worked, living simply and frugally, but recently got an advance to write his biography, which gives him some apprehensions about reliving part of his past he'd rather not revisit. His only current link to his former profession is his best friend Alexandra Templeton, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, who is secretly engaged to columnist Joe Soto, a longtime friend as well. In making notes on his biography, Justice faces his long-buried feelings about having been molested at ages 12-13 by a parish priest back in Buffalo NY. To bring closure to that episode in his life, he seeks out information about the priest, and learns that he actually had been transferred to the Los Angeles archdiocese a few years after his encounters, and died in a reported hiking accident about ten years ago. Justice presses the local diocese officials for more information, whether there had been further reports of molestations or if he had indeed been "rehabilitated," and is surprised when the "sorry, that's confidential" response comes from the office of the Bishop himself. Justice smells a coverup, and talks his friend Joe Soto into doing a column about an "anonymous" reader who reported abuse by the priest, and the strange reaction received from the diocese. The mystery quickly grows from there, as Joe Soto is killed in a suspicious hit-and-run accident, with some evidence suggesting that the driver may have been an infamous South American hired assassin, who usually works for drug cartels. At the same time, reaction to Soto's column triggers letters from readers with additional reports of mollestations by the priest, creating more questions than answers, especially when one such reader mysteriously dies in a fall from the hospital where she worked. When the diocese offers him a million dollars to end his investigations, Justice becomes more assured that the bishop (which had been a close friend of the priest in question) may be involved, and perhaps even the presiding Cardinal, who is under strong consideration to be the next pope. Absolute nail-biting suspense, with passages of outright terror, make this, in my opinion, the best of the series. Realistic, street-saavy characters and scenarios, with an eye for detail that makes him one of the best.