REVIEWED BY BOB ADEY:

   

A. R. HILLIARD – Justice Be Damned. Judge Thomas W. Manfred #1. Farrar & Rinehart, hardcover, 1941.

   Unusual story — almost a tour de force. Counsel for the defence Jerome Carver finds himself defending Frank Peabody for the second time against a charge of murder. Acquitted once when his wife was the victim, he now stands trial for the murder of her lover.

   In flashback sequences the ground is covered leading to the present predicament, and we watch Carver wriggle, apparently unsuccessfully, to get his man off the hook. But after the verdict and sentence, the twists and turns really begin, and the trial judge turns detective and poses a series of seemingly loony questions of which John Dickson Carr would have been proud.

   I did guess the real murderer — but not much else. Hilliard only wrote two mysteries – a pity.

– Reprinted from The Poison Pen, Volume 6, Number 1 (Spring 1984).

   

Bibliographic Update: The second and final case solved by Judge Thomas Manfred was Outlaw Island (Farrar, hardcover, 1942).