A Kind Of Wild Justice

This crime novel is both sad and clever. The entertainment is in the cleverness, as a highly convoluted plot winds brilliantly to a more-or-less satisfactory conclusion. Justice is cetainly done, and in most cases (there are more crimes here than the obvious) the punishment is fitting. The sadness is in the human frailties that a hideous rape, torture and murder uncovers. A man is arrested but not convicted, partly because the detective concerned has let his emotions run riot. Twenty years later, DNA evidence makes it clear that the accused was indeed guilty, but British law decrees a second trial impossible. Connected with both the crime and its aftermath is a woman journalist emotionally involved with the detective. Their love/lust plays itself miserably out against a background of legal, journalistic and computer complexities. Bonner is skilled in setting a scene, and the sexist jealousies of the newspaper world, the ambitious infighting of the police and the inadequacies of the law are all in turn brought unpleasantly to our view. It is hard to admire the journalist and her crude policeman lover, or the treachery of the newspaper editors. The only validation is that these worlds are at least less tarnished than that of the London villains, who also have a considerable part to play in the wildness of the justice here meeted out. The only innocents are the murdered child and her family, whom the crime destroys. For them there is little justice. However, Bonner holds our attention to the end, where there is one last unexpected twist to her noose. Review by Sister Wendy Beckett (Kirkus UK)