Triple Jeopardy

The author of Desperate Justice, Speight bases his new novel on a provocative situation, but it is weakened by overwriting and much burdensome psychological observations of the characters. Judge Cullen Whitehurst is an alcoholic whose wife and friends had helped him to recover years earlier, in time to save his legal career. Now, worrying about his impatience and erratic bursts, people close to the judge suspect he's drinking again. He is: secretly and heavily. One night, driving home on icy roads, Whitehurst hits a young man. He moves the body into the middle of the road, where it will be hit again, and drives away, but not before he notes the license number of the next car to roll over the victim. Then he calls the police anonymously. Later, Baxter Post, the son of a prominent family, is on trial in Whitehurst's courtroom, an irony that tests what's left of the judge's conscience. The intended surprise in the denouement misfires, mostly because previous incidents are so confusing that one can't be sure of their import. (July)