A review by snukes
Justice Hall by Laurie R. King

4.0

A very enjoyable read. The writing was superb, the historic events that inspired the plot were heartbreaking and beautifully handled, but I felt like a lot of literary cheating went on to allow the tidy conclusion. When learning to write fiction, one thing I hear over and over again is that using coincidences to further your story is dangerous, and using them to provide a conclusion is unforgivable. While the events that allowed this story to wrap up were not strictly coincidences, they had a bit of that essence about them and the epilogue was just over the top.

The strength of the book lies in the characters, chiefly the protagonists. Somewhat unusual for the Mary Russell books I've read so far, this includes Mary and Sherlock Holmes only to a limited degree, instead giving us Marsh and Alistair - seen previously in O Jerusalem as Mahmoud and Ali - and a few new faces (notably Iris and the deceased Gabriel) to follow. But as strong as she makes them, I found a few things in the story/other characters lacking:

SPOILERS NOW FOLLOW

I sniffed out the realization that a new heir would present himself much earlier than I usually see these things coming in a story. Perhaps it was simply that such a solution was the only possible way to free Marsh, so it was a bit inevitable. I can easily forgive King for that. But the way it was made possible seemed to convenient. A young soldier who's constantly sent back to the front lines of World War 1 France really had enough time to create a romance? And he found a girl that was not only willing to fall for him, knowing how likely it was he would be killed, but also to marry him so quickly? And to conceive a child in the middle of that war-torn horror? Yes, it's possible, but seems so unlikely. And that the child would just happen to be male - fine, a fifty-fifty chance, but now the cluster of "it just happened to be the way we needed it to be"s is getting a bit thick.

And why was Ivo the guy? He was the less-likely of the two suspects, but the motives provided for him seemed a bit weak. Perhaps this is because so very little was known about him through most of the story. Practically everything we learned about him was from Holmes' summary of the suspects toward the end. I would have liked to know more about him so I could more fully believe him capable of all the horrors described. Being rich, slightly spoiled, and suddenly pining for a noble title seems weak motive for one horrific murder followed by several sort of pitiful murder attempts.

All right, it's fine. The story was so engrossing that in the end, I can forgive all of that too. I'm just not sure if I can forgive the epilogue. It certainly was a very tidy way to wrap up, and I see how it was meant to be a satisfying what with the "waters of Justice" and all, but.... Gah! It's right up there with Iris Murdoch's bomb-killing-the-unloved-wife in The Sacred and Profane Love Machine for deus ex machinas coming in to solve an otherwise unresolveable conflict. Boo! I would have been much more satisfied if the'd left Ivo to face a broken justice machine that would inevitably find him not-guilty. What was he doing in the pond anyway? Did someone who wanted to make sure he got justice lure him there? I couldn't even tell if that was being implied.

I find that this is a lot of criticizing I'm doing for a book I claim to have enjoyed reading so much. I suppose that's because enjoying King and her books so much, I feel a little let down when she doesn't meet the otherwise very high standards I have for her. In any case, I very much look forward to the next installment in the series.