Simple Justice: A Benjamin Justice Mystery

The noir L.A. trappings that surround gay journalist Benjamin Justice are as thick as the plot of this fiction debut is thin. After an abusive childhood, the disgrace of handing back a Pulitzer Prize, a cherished lover dead from AIDS and several years on the sauce, Ben is suddenly handed a much-needed second chance from Harry Brofsky, his old editor. A young man has been killed outside a gay bar in West Hollywood, and Ben is soon back to a life he left behind, cruising the bars, looking for information. He quickly falls into a brutal relationship with a sexually confused young Latino. He also lusts after the son of a homophobic politician and has to fend off the unwanted advances of a long-legged woman journalist. Wilson burdens his cast with enough emotional baggage for a half-dozen afternoon talk shows, and he lets his sleuth in for a lot of rough sex. As a functioning mystery, the tale has plenty of characters but few fully developed suspects; the investigation closes predictably with a fact already well established. Wilson's vivid description of young gay life on the streets of West Hollywood is poorly served by his pedestrian plotting. (Aug.)