Sun 18 Jul 2021
A Mystery Review by Bob Adey: A. R. HILLIARD – Justice Be Damned.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[9] Comments
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.
Bibliographic Update: The second and final case solved by Judge Thomas Manfred was Outlaw Island (Farrar, hardcover, 1942).
July 18th, 2021 at 5:07 pm
The positive reference to John Dickson Carr was more than enough for me to go looking for a copy, and I found one on eBay at a price so embarrassing low that I won’t tell you how little I ended up paying for it.
July 18th, 2021 at 8:31 pm
Always nice when one of these rarities turns out to be reasonably priced.
July 18th, 2021 at 8:46 pm
TIME MAGAZINE
JUSTICE BE DAMNED—A. R. Hilliard —Farrar & Rinehart ($2). Mr. Peabody is standing trial for shooting his wife’s lover, whose presumptive bones have just been fished out of the river. Actually, a clever schemer is using Judge Manfred’s court and Defense Attorney Carver to murder Mr. Peabody. Theatrical, but the Judge does some fine, lofty detecting.
NY TIMES (incomplete)
THIS high-spirited — not to say ingratiating — title introduces the 1941 winner of the Mary Roberts Rinehart mystery novel contest. And the title has a vital relation to a story whose scene shifts in and out of a court room, whose theme has to do with the law of double jeopardy, and whose plot introduces an unidentified murderer muttering “Justice be damned!” in the first paragraph.
July 19th, 2021 at 12:34 am
From the San Bernardino Sun, 23 April 1941:
For the second successive year a resident of Ithaca, N. Y., has won first prize in the Mary Roberts Rinehart Mystery Novel Contest. Last year it was Clarissa Fairchild Cushman with I Wanted to Murder and this year it is A. R. Hilliard with Justice be Damned.
Mr. Hilliard was born in Binghampton, N. Y., in 1908 and graduated from Cornell in 1930. He has done publicity work and run radio programs for electrical companies and has written short stories for the pulps, most of them of the science fiction variety. Last year he returned to Ithaca and settled down to serious writing. Justice Be Damned will be published on June 19.
FictionMags shows a few stories:
* The Avenging Ray [Dr. Herbert Jules], (na) Wonder Stories Quarterly Spring 1931
* Breath of the Comet, (ss) Astounding Stories January 1934
* Death from the Stars, (nv) Wonder Stories October 1931
Startling Stories September 1941
Famous Science Fiction Spring 1969
* The Green Torture, (ss) Wonder Stories March 1931
Startling Stories January 1943
* The Island of the Giants [Dr. Herbert Jules], (nv) Wonder Stories August 1931
* The Martian (with Allen Glasser), (nv) Wonder Stories Quarterly Winter 1932
* The Reign of the Star-Death [Dr. Herbert Jules], (na) Wonder Stories April 1932
* The Space Coffin, (nv) Wonder Stories August 1932
July 19th, 2021 at 11:11 pm
Thanks, Sai. Very interesting! As far as I’m concerned, though, SF from this era is the same as being from the Stone Age. Some have to be better than others, though. Maybe Hilliard’s fall into that category. Someone else will have to tell me, though. At this later stage of my life, my days of venture reading are over.
July 19th, 2021 at 7:02 am
No “p” in Binghamton.
Bob Adey always came up with these interesting, obscure titles (all of which he seemed to have in his enormous collection), and he made them seem like something you would want to read.
July 19th, 2021 at 11:13 pm
Thanks for giving me permission to reprint them, Jeff. I like the fact that Bob is probably getting more comments on his reviews now than he did almost 40 years ago.
July 20th, 2021 at 6:15 pm
Steve,
Just realized I have a beautiful copy of “Outland Island” in jacket, but it won’t be THAT cheap. Let us all know how you like “Justice Be Damned”.
July 20th, 2021 at 7:26 pm
Will do. It’s still on its way. (I was charged more for postage than I was for the book.)