As Ben begins what he hopes will be a new career, Callahan is reported missing. Peter Graff, a young man who had worked closely with Callahan, draws Ben into the search for the missing man. The trail leads Ben and Peter to the seedy residential motel room where Callahan lived. There they discover a ransacked room spattered with blood. Ben’s interest intensifies after finding an earring on the floor he believes belongs to Cecile Chang, the lady that recently hired him and gave him a new chance at life.

John Morgan Wilson uses the loose story line of a man trying to find the killer of his predecessor in his new job as a forum for championing the rights of gay society and to expose some of the prejudices and malevolent behavior exhibited toward gays by the so-called straight society. Clearly, the mystery (which is easy for the average reader to solve) plays a secondary role to an in-depth discussion of the gay community and its many problems. There are many mystery stories which feature gay characters, but their lifestyle does not dominate the plot as it does in Justice at Risk.

Graphic violence is also a part of Justice at Risk. Although a relatively small portion of the book is devoted to physical brutality, the scenes containing physical torture of individuals are painstakingly described. Those readers without strong stomachs would do well to skip over these parts.

Occasionally Mr. Wilson allows his characters to make some thought provoking comments on life. One character’s view on blacks: “You never hear… the murderer has light skin. Must be the white blood made him kill…. Only question your blackness when you’ve accomplished something. Never the other way around.” Or our hero’s view on university life: “With the exception of a quick drug fix or a trip to Disneyland, there may be no faster way to leave the real world behind than to take a stroll on a lovely spring day across a university campus.” Unfortunately, these observations are few and far between.

To fully appreciate Ben Justice it would probably be worthwhile to read the previous entries in the series, Simple Justice, and Revision of Justice. References abound in this book to Ben’s life prior to this book. The author alludes to Ben’s having won a Pulitzer Prize, which was later taken back, and losing his job as a highly paid reporter for an important newspaper. The reader who is familiar with the circumstances surrounding these events in Ben’s life would undoubtedly have a better understanding of his character than a reader who first introduction to Justice came from Justice at Risk.

Justice at Risk would have been a far stronger mystery had the author placed more emphasis on the mysterious elements and relegated the AIDS issue and the homosexuals struggle to a more secondary role.

--Andy Plonka