Justice: Crimes, Trials, and Punishments

Ok, the first star is for doing a very good personal account of his daughter's murder. It is probably the inspiration for the book, and my heart goes out to the man for what he had to endure after the murder. Second star is for the general theme about how wealth and fame DO affect the legal process, when this is the country in which things like this aren't supposed to happen. The third star is for you OJ junkies. No matter how much you followed the trial, I guarantee you will be treated to dozens of juicy new facts, which I'm sure is what will generate the most sales.

On the bad side, the author seems to think it important that we know that he knows just about every celebrity ever to be featured in People magazine. Sometimes this distracts from what is often very good story telling. An example of this is during the OJ section, by far the largest portion of the book. Instead of just mentioning that he missed a court session due to attending Eva Gabor's funeral, or just a funeral, he has to give you a list of all the celebrities that attended, as well as the fact that there was a big portrait of Ms. Gabor over the casket. Very distracting.

This might just be considered quirky except for and insight you get on the author himself as the book goes on. You read how he cut gym classes as a student to go and read gossip columnists. He also praises Dorothy Kilgallen as one of "the great New York gossip columnists". For one that considers all of them somewhat seedy, it definately formed an opinion for me. But what really turned me off was the introduction to the chapter on a famous DuPont family murder. He starts it off by mentioning that someone of no importance whatsoever was found murdered in a Las Vegas motel. I guess not being on anybody's social register determined their standing as a human being.

Read it, but take a good shower afterwards.

Not much I can add to the well-written reviews here, but I wanted to let Dunne fans know that several of these essays have been reproduced from "Fatal Charms" and "Mansions of Limbo," with some new essays added on. Dunne's always good, but those expecting totally new material will be disappointed.

Also, it was Abraham Lincoln who first said, "For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like." And definitely, this is the sort of thing I like!

Not always true in this age of court TV and money to buy even the guiltiest person their freedom, but is that anything new, really? Sad but true our justice system has some major flaws, and Dunne is quick to point them out. In this book he covers some of the biggest cases of the last few decades including the O.J. Trial, the Menendez brother's cruel murder of their parents, and the Claus von Bulow Case in Newport, Rhode Island whose prime victim, Sonny his wife, still sadly passes her days in an insulin induced coma. He also poignantly reiterates the trial of his own daughter's murder by an obsessed boyfriend.

The book is gripping and hits close to the heart especially when justice seems to be obliterated by the system, and the perpetrator makes out better than the victim. At these times you would beg to change the title to "Injustice". The one thing that I found difficult is the flow, the author seemed to jump back and forth between cases, All in all it was a very enlightening book. I would give this book 3.5 stars. Kelsana 1/22/02

This book got me through Christmas in Malaysia on a hiking trip where I stayed in the mountains in a hotel resembling an English country cottage which manages to make the visitor feel claustrophobic. My brother in Singapore handed JUSTICE to me with the words "This is awful. Who cares about OJ anymore and he's wrong about the Safra case." He concluded by recommending I use the pages for toilet paper in the jungle, the kind of suggestion one brother will invariably make to another, to the amusement of each. Fortunately, I didn't find it awful. Even though I had read a number of these subjects in Vanity Fair, I was mesmorized once again by Dominick Dunne's unique perspective. He is both a shameless gossipmonger and a crime reporter of the highest integrity. He is obsessed in equal measure with justice and glamour.

I admit to having dreaded the chapters on the OJ case because of its notoriety and injustice of the final verdict. However, given the incomprehensible mess created during the trial, Mr. Dunne actually make some sense out of the senseless and propounds a level of social morality which made me feel outraged for the victims and their families, but also satisfied that the case has been regarded as clearly unjust and unquestionably misjudged. This is Mr. Dunne's greatest achievement, that he keeps reason at the fore and dismisses the madness for what it is. This clarity continues through all the cases. There is no boredom factor here: every story is both peculiar and bizarrely entertaining or, taking it one step further by paraphasing Miss Jean Brodie (or Murial Spark if you must), "for those of us who like that sort of thing, this is the sort of thing we like."

Mr. Dunne writes in a style which lends irony, bitterness and clarity to cases full of red herring and slander among the so-called rich and famous. I can think of no other crime reporter quite like him. He reflects a sense of social interaction and high-minded justice with an intensely alluring and entertaining voice.

This book is broken down into chapters, generally each being a different murder. There were 10 of the 18 chapters devoted to the OJ trial. I have read and heard enough of that legal debacle to last me a lifetime. I probably would have enjoyed the book much more, had a skipped that section.

I did enjoy several of the other chapters, especially the heartfelt story of Dunne's murdered daughter and my heart goes out to him and his family.

I generally love this type of a book,but found it hard to stay interested. There was a great deal of name dropping, which didn't seem to fit into the stories and I found the chapters on the Menendez murders very hard to follow.