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A review by bjr2022
A Covenant With Death by Stephen Becker
5.0
How to describe this book? A sophisticated literary novel with such inventive vocabulary, you might need a dictionary (“borborygmus”—stomach gurgle and groan!) or a law degree. A crime novel that takes place in 1923 but has a kind of ribald, irreverent humor that feels contemporary—so perhaps it’s timeless and it is merely generational arrogance that fancies it invents it. A noir story about a small-town big-psyche crime and dilemma, written with far more psychological complexity, depth, fury, and despair than is usually demonstrated in the noir genre.
All of these descriptors are accurate.
The dialogue is wonderful. And even better is the understanding of men’s and women’s differences, youth and age, and our “precarious humanity (221)” as we grapple over what’s just, what’s right, and what’s legal. And it’s all done in a tale recalled by a seventy-year-old judge, looking back at himself as a very young judge presiding over the trial of a 1923 crime in an unnamed state populated by white people, Mexicans, Native Americans, and Jews (yes, race is dealt with the most contemporary way) in a small Southwestern town called Soledad (loneliness).
Perfect.
All of these descriptors are accurate.
The dialogue is wonderful. And even better is the understanding of men’s and women’s differences, youth and age, and our “precarious humanity (221)” as we grapple over what’s just, what’s right, and what’s legal. And it’s all done in a tale recalled by a seventy-year-old judge, looking back at himself as a very young judge presiding over the trial of a 1923 crime in an unnamed state populated by white people, Mexicans, Native Americans, and Jews (yes, race is dealt with the most contemporary way) in a small Southwestern town called Soledad (loneliness).
Perfect.