Justice at Risk: A Benjamin Justice Mystery

A recovering alcoholic and disgraced journalist (for faking a story that won a Pulitzer), Benjamin Justice (Revision of Justice), who's just turned 40, doesn't enjoy the brightest prospects. But now his good friend Alexandra Templeton, a fast-rising reporter at the Los Angeles Sun, is offering to introduce him to a handsome UCLA anthropology professor, Oree Joffrien. When Joffrien, in turn, offers to introduce Justice to his close friend, documentary film producer Cecile Chang in order to work on the script for a series about AIDS, the ever-skeptical Justice refuses to leap at the chance. As soon as he meets ""Adonis like"" associate producer Peter Graff, however, he decides to sign on. Graff has been working on his own for nearly a week, because the series' director, Tom Callahan, has disappeared without a word. The impending production deadline prompts Justice and Graff to search for Callahan. They find the director's apartment abandoned, with traces of blood and signs of a struggle in the bedroom. The next day, Callahan's body turns up severely mutilated in an area of L.A. known for homosexual cruising. At first glance, the killing looks like another case of homophobia taken to horrific extremes--but what about the puzzling connection between Callahan's murder and the death of another documentary filmmaker, Brian Mittelman? The two murders are soon linked to a police cover-up involving a brutality case that predates the infamous Rodney King incident, and Justice finds himself entangled in a web of political corruption that reaches into the gay S&M underworld (the novel crescendos with gruesome scenes of sex and violence). A startlingly complex and refreshingly sophisticated mystery, Wilson's third book tackles real-life issues with just the right combination of urbanity and hard-boiled sleuthing. Agent, Alice Martell. (July.) FYI: Simple Justice, which began this series, won the 1997 Edgar for Best First Novel.