Justice: Crimes, Trials, and Punishments

Although Dunne's claims of being an "outsider" to high society are as specious as Capote's were (both seems quite infatuated with the rich-n-snooty, and not wholly apart from their social circle), this is a fine book to read for an intro to Dunne's sharp writing.

He layers on the facts, quirks, and juicy details of the given crimes and trials, and points out the vast ineptitude of the justice system along the way. A restless plane passenger, I was able to sit still and absorbed in Justice for an entire six and a half hour plane ride. Perfect material for wiling away the hours.

His writing is unpretentious and clips by at quick speed. There were some moments of repitition and some muddling of perspective at times (hell, after dealing with the maze of the justice system, who wouldn't stumble now and again?). But for a bit of engrossing escapist fare, this is a dandy book.

Won't transport you to another world or dazzle you with gymnastic prose or earth-shattering new insight, but that ain't the point, so there's no gripe there.

Poolside, crammed in a seat in coach class, or flopped on the couch for an afternoon, this is a good choice. A surprise, since most crime-related writing hold little to no attraction for me.

I was familiar with Dunne because of his writing with Vanity Fair. I also knew about the murder of his daughter, Dominique. This is the first book I've read by Dunne, and I'm impressed. It was painful to read about the terrible injustice his family went through when his daughter's killer got off the hook. I also loved how he wrote about the OJ trial as it progressed, rather than hindsite. I'm looking forward to more books by Mr. Dunne. I don't care if he's a social climber or not, this was a very interesting book!

I have never read Mr. Dunne and thought that I would enjoy his fresh and unique perspective on recent criminal trials. Unfortunately, all of the vignettes have been previously published in Vanity Fair and little or no effort has been made to update them for subsequent developments. As such, anyone with more than a casual interest in the subjects (Menendez, OJ, Safra, etc.) will have already heard 99% of what he has to say. His prose is somewhat cumbersome and the celebrity gossip and relationship details where he has genuine insight and access are often presented in a confusing manner. Mr. Dunne could have written a much better book had he updated and critiqued his previous work, accounting for new events or noting where his original opinion had changed. Unless you are fortunate enough run in his social cricles, or else your name appers in print on its pages, you are better to leave it on the shelf.

Excellent book. I highly recommend it!! Good writing as only Mr. Dunne can do ....

Until the OJ Simpson trial I never knew much about Dominick Dunne beyond the fact that he was a "society writer". To me that meant he was a dilletante not worth my time. Then during the trial I came to enjoy his analyses on various news programs, but I still shied away from reading his Vanity Fair articles.

Therefore when I picked up Justice it was mainly to review his take on the OJ mess. I was immediately taken aback by the first article, which is the story of the murder of Dunne's own daughter, the trial of her murderer, and the pain Dunne still feels years later. Clearly, there is more to this man than I thought. This was borne out by other sections of Justice which deal with other famous trials Dunne has observed: Von Bulow, Menendez, etc. All of them are well written and provide a troubling vision of how American justice doesn't seem to work well much of the time.

I don't mean that Dunne is always deep and weighty. He drops plenty of society names and spends a little too much time cataloguing the lives of the rich but worthless. Overall, though, Justice is a good analysis of some of our most notorious recent trials