Simple Justice

A Benjamin Justice Thriller, Book 1 - It's 1994, an election year when violent crime is rampant, voters want action, and politicians smell blood. When a Latino teenager confesses to the murder of a pretty-boy cokehead outside a gay bar in L.A., the cops consider the case closed. But Benjamin Justice, a disgraced former reporter for the Los Angeles Times, sees something in the jailed boy others don't. His former editor, Harry Brofsky, now toiling at the rival Los Angeles Sun, pries Justice from his alcoholic seclusion to help neophyte reporter Alexandra Templeton dig deeper into the story. But why would a seemingly decent kid confess to a brutal gang initiation killing if he wasn't guilty? And how can Benjamin Justice possibly be trusted, given his central role in the Pulitzer scandal that destroyed his career? Snaking his way through shadowy neighborhoods and dubious suspects, he's increasingly haunted by memories of his lover Jacques, whose death from AIDS six years earlier precipitated his fall from grace. As he unravels emotionally, Templeton attempts to solve the riddle of his dark past and ward off another meltdown as they race against a critical deadline to uncover and publish the truth.

Awarded an Edgar by Mystery Writers of America for Best First Novel on initial release, this 25th Anniversary edition has been revised by the author. A foreword for the 2020 edition by Christopher Rice (Bone Music) is included.

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Simple Justice

A Benjamin Justice Thriller, Book 1 - It's 1994, an election year when violent crime is rampant, voters want action, and politicians smell blood. When a Latino teenager confesses to the murder of a pretty-boy cokehead outside a gay bar in L.A., the cops consider the case closed. But Benjamin Justice, a disgraced former reporter for the Los Angeles Times, sees something in the jailed boy others don't. His former editor, Harry Brofsky, now toiling at the rival Los Angeles Sun, pries Justice from his alcoholic seclusion to help neophyte reporter Alexandra Templeton dig deeper into the story. But why would a seemingly decent kid confess to a brutal gang initiation killing if he wasn't guilty? And how can Benjamin Justice possibly be trusted, given his central role in the Pulitzer scandal that destroyed his career? Snaking his way through shadowy neighborhoods and dubious suspects, he's increasingly haunted by memories of his lover Jacques, whose death from AIDS six years earlier precipitated his fall from grace. As he unravels emotionally, Templeton attempts to solve the riddle of his dark past and ward off another meltdown as they race against a critical deadline to uncover and publish the truth.

Awarded an Edgar by Mystery Writers of America for Best First Novel on initial release, this 25th Anniversary edition has been revised by the author. A foreword for the 2020 edition by Christopher Rice (Bone Music) is included.

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Overview

A Benjamin Justice Thriller, Book 1 - It's 1994, an election year when violent crime is rampant, voters want action, and politicians smell blood. When a Latino teenager confesses to the murder of a pretty-boy cokehead outside a gay bar in L.A., the cops consider the case closed. But Benjamin Justice, a disgraced former reporter for the Los Angeles Times, sees something in the jailed boy others don't. His former editor, Harry Brofsky, now toiling at the rival Los Angeles Sun, pries Justice from his alcoholic seclusion to help neophyte reporter Alexandra Templeton dig deeper into the story. But why would a seemingly decent kid confess to a brutal gang initiation killing if he wasn't guilty? And how can Benjamin Justice possibly be trusted, given his central role in the Pulitzer scandal that destroyed his career? Snaking his way through shadowy neighborhoods and dubious suspects, he's increasingly haunted by memories of his lover Jacques, whose death from AIDS six years earlier precipitated his fall from grace. As he unravels emotionally, Templeton attempts to solve the riddle of his dark past and ward off another meltdown as they race against a critical deadline to uncover and publish the truth.

Awarded an Edgar by Mystery Writers of America for Best First Novel on initial release, this 25th Anniversary edition has been revised by the author. A foreword for the 2020 edition by Christopher Rice (Bone Music) is included.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781951092306
Publisher: Requeered Tales
Publication date: 09/15/2020
Series: Benjamin Justice Mystery , #1
Pages: 282
Product dimensions: 5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.64(d)

About the Author

John Morgan Wilson is a veteran journalist, TV news and documentary writer, and fiction writer. Simple Justice launched his Benjamin Justice mystery series in 1996, earning an Edgar Allan Poe Award (AKA the Edgar) from Mystery Writers of America for Best First Novel. Three other Justice titles in the eight-book series won Lambda Literary Awards for best gay men's mystery; six were nominated. His short fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Blithe House Quarterly, and numerous anthologies. For thirty years, he served as an instructor with the UCLA Extension Writers' Program. He lives with his longtime companion, artist Pietro Gamino, in West Hollywood, California, the primary setting for the Benjamin Justice series.

Christopher Rice is the New York Times bestselling author of over fifteen books in multiple genres of fiction, including the Bram Stoker Award finalists The Heavens Rise and The Vines, as well as the Lambda Literary Award winner, The Snow Garden. Bone Music, the first novel in his Burning Girl series was an Amazon Charts bestseller. He is an executive producer on the television adaptation of Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles and Lives of the Mayfair Witches for AMC Studios. Together with his best friend and producing partner, the New York Times bestselling novelist Eric Shaw Quinn, he runs the video and podcast network, TDPS. (TheDinnerPartyShow.com)
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